


Better to Jump Not Fall

by Cottonstones



Category: Empires, Panic At The Disco, Young Veins
Genre: Abduction, Community: bandombigbang, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 18:04:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 56,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cottonstones/pseuds/Cottonstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean can see ghosts. He's always been able to – and it's not like TV, no matter what Tom says. Sean’s power to help the dead has never interfered with his daily life or his relationships much, but that’s slowly beginning to change. Things are hard enough with Sean falling for his band mate and being afraid to admit his feelings, but when the ghosts of the city tell him that something big is coming and he’s the only one who can stop it, Sean’s life grows increasingly difficult. He just wants to make music, but nothing is ever that simple. Sean’s been carrying these ghosts for years. Who knew that falling in love could be scarier than ghosts?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better to Jump Not Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Wave One of [Bandom Big Bang](http://bandombigbang.livejournal.com/) 2012\. The art for this fic can be found [here](http://pinkichan.livejournal.com/44298.html) and the mixes for this fic can be found [here](http://pinkichan.livejournal.com/44040.html).

Sean doesn’t remember the first time he ever made contact with the other side, so to speak. He assumes it had just been happening all his life. There was never a solid moment where Sean stopped and said “Oh, there’s something happening here.” It was always just…there. _They_ were always just there. Sean once had a conversation with his parents about his childhood; his mother said something offhand about how Sean never seemed lonely, how he’d be sitting alone in his room babbling about nothing like he was having the best conversations in the world. Right away, the true nature of that memory climbs inside Sean’s mind and settles there, awakening a long sleeping thought. The ghosts have been speaking to him before Sean could even form words. 

He doesn’t think it’s something you necessarily get used to. Sean just – he’s there, and the ghosts are there. He once tried to explain it to Max, which was actually really fucking difficult because Max is all logic and figuring out the rational aspect of things. Sometimes, Sean can’t believe that it was so easy to convince even Ryan and Tom of his “condition” – he doesn’t like calling it a power. That’s not really…accurate. To Sean, a power should be something grander, something that really matters, that could help the living instead of the dead. But he couldn’t figure out how to explain it to Max. He couldn’t clarify his ability to be able to live a semi-normal life, at least one where he’d be able to focus on music and not ghosts. He ended up comparing it to how some people are able to tune out a song they’ve heard one too many times or background noise, like a rerun of a sitcom you’ve seen a million times. It’s noise, but it isn’t the focus. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t even be making music,” Ryan says as he hefts his drum kit into the back of the trailer. He’s nursing his index finger where there’s a partially deep cut. Sean is so used to Ryan injuring himself that he barely bats an eye at it anymore. “We could open our own psychic place. Have Sean read people’s palms.” 

“That isn’t what I do, asshole,” Sean says. 

“Then Tom will read palms,” Ryan says. “You’ll host séances. You know, connect people with their loved ones?”

“I’m doing _what_ to people’s palms?” Tom asks. He drops his shit at the mouth of the trailer and pulls a cigarette from behind his ear, stealing a lighter from Max. 

“Ryan wants us to become professional supernatural enthusiasts,” Max says. 

“Then what will you and Max do?” Tom asks. He flicks off the lingering ash on his cigarette and smiles because that’s usually how Tom is. He talks more than he smokes and then bitches when his pack is gone. “And remember, being handsome is not an option.”

“Hear that, Max? Tom thinks we’re handsome.” Ryan plasters on his shit-eating grin and then elbows Max in the side. Max on his part just ducks his head and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. 

“Then my work here is done,” Max says. 

Sean likes that they can joke around like this. His condition doesn’t have to be serious; it doesn’t have to take away from the music or his friendships or his life if he doesn’t let it. It’s always a fight, though, because Sean is trying to tread between maintaining the living and the dead. He falls into the line in between far too often for his liking. 

Sean is halfheartedly listening to Max and Tom argue over who has to pack up the merch table. He’s about to take the job himself when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns as a reflex, expecting a fan to be there. What he isn’t expecting is to see a spirit hanging around here. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. It’s not like a cartoon or something. There’s nothing that looks like sheets with eyeholes cut out floating around and it’s not quite like they’re see-through. He’s done a lot of reading on the subject by now, but a lot of the facts with his own condition come right from his own experiences, like the spirits just taking on a corporal form. Maybe it was who they were when they were alive or maybe who they wish they could’ve been. 

But again, there are no real dead giveaways as to this girl standing behind him being a ghost, aside for the seasonally inappropriate clothes she’s wearing. She isn’t shimmering or floating, her eyes aren’t hollow, pitch-black holes. 

“You’re the one who can hear me, right?” she asks him, her voice watery. 

“Oh,” Sean says. He can feel the other three regard him. They can’t see her, so they mostly go off of Sean’s body language, his side of a conversation that’s lost to them. “I guess so. I’m Sean.” He goes to offer her his hand, a reflex, and then feels stupid. 

“Sean?” Tom asks. “Is there one right now?”

Sean nods and his friends fall silent behind him. 

The spirit looks beyond Sean to the building behind them. It’s the venue they just finished playing at. “This place was an opera house when I was alive.” Her eyes shift to Sean. “I was a performer here.” The ghost tries to start telling Sean her story. He doesn’t want to listen. Of course, there’s a part of him that is curious and wants to know. But knowing means he becomes invested and he doesn’t know if he can do that at a show. 

Sean looks at her – dark hair piled up into a plait, equally dark, sorrowful eyes. “It doesn’t look a thing like it used to,” she tells him. Sean looks back at the venue, a rundown, little place with a sketchy bar and some of the worst bathrooms he’s ever seen. He can’t even imagine an opera house ever existing here. 

“Time has a funny way of evolving the world around us,” Sean says as he looks back at her. He thinks of Chicago and how, each time he comes home from tour, he doesn’t come home to the exact same place he left. Even if it’s just something small, maybe a coffee shop closed down or someone painted the apartment buildings near Sean’s first apartment, it’s never the same. Nowhere is ever the same as the moment you’re standing there. 

She smiles at him. Sean is keenly aware of his band edging in behind him. This ghost, though, she’s beautiful and a performer. She’s the kind of girl Sean would write a song about. He’s screwed himself because he’s pretty interested in her. 

“I can’t do much for you,” Sean says. “I’m leaving this city in four hours.”

She frowns at him. “You don’t even know what I want.”

“Are we solving a murder again?” Ryan asks. Sean still cringes at that memory. It was the ghost of a teenage girl who asked them to report her killer to the police. That was…it was rough on all of them. She’d been dead since before Max was even born, but she still knew where the man who killed her was living. She’d told Sean that she haunted him for years, that she had evidence, and all Sean had to do was point the police in the right direction. Of course, it wasn’t that simple because it never ever is, because what police officer is going to believe that a band just happens to hold the key to a twenty-three-year old murder? 

“If that’s the case, you’d better say no, Sean. Fucking last time we were held in that city for three days until shit was sorted out. We’re a band, not fucking Scooby Doo,” Tom sighs irritably. 

Sean ignores his band. “Okay. Fair enough. What do you want?”

“I want you to deliver a letter.”

“A letter?”

She nods. “I died when my daughter was young…too young. There was a lot I wanted to say to her but never could. I have the chance now.”

Sean bites his lip. “Does she live in this city?” 

“Sean, what are you agreeing to?” Tom asks. “We said we had to have a group vote before we decided whether or not to listen to your little friends, remember?” 

“Not far from here,” the ghost says, shooting Tom a very nasty look. “Please.”

“Give me one second,” Sean says. The ghost nods and Sean expects it because, well, what the hell else does she have to do, right? He leaves her to go to Ryan, Tom, and Max. “She wants me to deliver a letter to her daughter. Apparently, she lives around here.”

“We gotta be to our next venue in ten hours to check in,” Max says. 

“I know that.”

“Are ghosts even capable of writing? I was under the impression that they couldn’t touch human stuff?” Ryan asks. He’s by far the most curious about what Sean does, about what ghosts can do, and he seems to think that Sean is some expert on the subject when, really, he’s just kind of winging it as he goes along. 

“I don’t know, man. Are we going to vote or what?” 

“Yeah, all who want to help Sean’s ghost, raise your hands,” Tom says. Two hands go up instantly, those belonging to Sean and Ryan, while slowly, Max’s hand joins them. 

“We should let Julio vote,” Tom says. He’s kidding, though, because no one outside the four of them knows about what Sean can see. Al didn’t even know – not that Sean wanted to keep it from him. By the time he was ready to tell them, Al had already left. 

“I’ll make it quick, Tom,” Sean promises. 

Tom may act pissed, but Sean knows that he doesn’t really mind this. It keeps the road mildly more interesting. Sean knows that Tom likes to act like the voice of reason, at least in these cases, even though the role rarely fits him in other band situations. Tom likes to remind them that they’re a band first and Sean’s shit comes second. 

They leave the venue earlier than they might otherwise, which makes Sean feel a little bad. He likes to give as much time to the fans as he can, but if they want to keep schedule and still help this spirit, then they have to go now. The five of them pile into the van and MapQuest an address given to them by a ghost. Ryan had been correct in his assumption of spirits being unable to write letters because, right now, Sean is crammed in the backseat with Max, dictating what the ghost wants to write to him. Sean’s handwriting is practically illegible, made even worse when driving. 

Tom pulls up a few houses away from the house where the daughter of the ghost woman lives. They slide the letter into an envelope and Max writes the woman’s name on it before handing it to Sean. There are cars parked in the driveway, so Sean figures the woman is probably home. He wishes he had more time. He wishes he had enough time to tell her that her long lost mother is right behind her and let them have a proper reunion, before he wraps everything up in a neat bow. But he doesn’t. This is as much of the story as Sean will ever get. He’ll never see the letter be read and he most likely won’t know what happens to the ghost afterward. He’ll leave the letter and drive to the next venue and try to forget about what happened. 

Once he’s seated back in the van, Sean looks up to see the ghost woman sitting next to him where Max should be. She takes his one hand in both of hers. Sean’s skin crawls, but he tries not to let that show. Touching a ghost is…it’s weird to say the very least, like his hand is falling asleep. 

“Thank you,” she tells him. Sean ducks his head and, by the time he looks up again, she’s gone. 

The world settles normally around him and his chest feels lighter. He takes a deep breath and rubs at his eyes. Ryan cranes around from the front passenger side seat so that he can look back at Sean. “She gone?” 

“Yeah.” Sean doesn’t know where, exactly. He feels like they expect him to know more about the spiritual world. Maybe he would if he cared about it as much as he does music. For now, he knows nothing of astral planes and why shit like this happens to him. 

Nothing spooky happens between the venue they left and the next one they arrive at. Tom and Ryan argue over what stations to listen to and Max fucks around on his phone in between bouts of playing referee. Sean tries to sleep, but it never comes easy to him in the van, and he’d rather wait until they hit the city and check into a hotel. The tour they’re on is a small one, the dates not straying too far from home. They’re releasing the album soon and once that drops, that’s when they’ll do the long tours. 

They get to the next venue late. It’s almost midnight and the show isn’t until the next night, so they just need to check in and then go crash at their hotel of choice. Sean stays inside the van during check-in. They don’t need him, but the others went inside to check the place out. Tangling with spirits drains him in a weird way that he feels like he needs to Google or some shit. The door to the van opens and Sean doesn’t even open his eyes to see who climbs inside. 

“Hey,” Sean hears Ryan say, and now he cracks his eyes open so that he can see Ryan taking up the space where Sean’s knees are bent. “Venue looks pretty cool.” 

“Awesome, should make for a good show, then.” 

Ryan nods, but then he looks at Sean, considering him. “Tired?” 

Sean smiles and presses his head back against the cool glass of the van. “Drained.”

Ryan takes on a serious look. “From that ghost today?” 

Sean shrugs. “I think so.” 

“You ever think it’s like sapping your life from you or something? That could be dangerous, Sean.” 

Sean looks back to Ryan. “It could be, but it feels like they just need help.” 

“You’re way too nice.”

“Someone’s gotta help them, Ryan. What if I’m the only person who really can? What if they’ve been waiting for so long for someone to talk to? How can I just turn away like that?” 

Ryan waves a hand at Sean. “Alright, alright. Don't start with your whole heroism speech.” 

Sean smiles and closes his eyes again. The van is quiet. There are times when Sean is trying to fall asleep, when he’s tired and his brain is slow, and he can hear the faint whisper of voices. They’re too far away for him to decipher properly, but he knows they’re ghosts. Whether they’re talking to him or just talking in the hopes that someone out there can hear them, Sean doesn’t know. He’d be more disturbed by the disembodied voices if he hadn’t heard them all his life. Right now in the van with Ryan, he can’t hear anything, no voices, just Ryan’s steady breathing and the quiet tapping of his fingers on the keys of his cell phone. 

The hotel is a different story. It’s an okay place, nothing flea-bitten, but from experience, Sean has found that even the most average places are crawling with ghosts. From the second he leaves the van, they turn to him. There are at least ten of them in the parking lot, suddenly chattering all at once. He shrugs his backpack over his shoulder and swears.

Ryan bumps his shoulder. “You okay?” 

“They’re everywhere.”

The spirits are talking so loud, so much all at once that Sean only catches pieces of words, things like _money_ , _my wife_ , _please_. But he can’t…it’s way too much and he isn’t good at saying no. Not yet, at least. 

“You dead need to get a life,” Tom snaps. He really has a low tolerance for Sean’s uninvited guests.

A male ghost says, leaning in close to Tom, “Sure, how about we take yours?” Tom can’t hear him, of course, and Sean wonders if he’d have half the attitude he does about the situation if the spirits were something more tangible to him. What he’s really wondering is if Tom would be scared. 

“Not tonight, guys,” Sean says. The ghosts don’t appreciate his answer and Sean is hit with a wall of incomprehensible noise. He hurries into the hotel even though the ghosts know no physical boundaries – they could just as easily follow him to his bedroom and pester him all night long if they really wanted to. 

“Isn’t there something you can do to ward them off?” Ryan asks. “Garlic?” 

Max snorts. “That’s for vampires.” 

When they take their rooms, Ryan pairs up with Tom and Max with Sean. There’s no real order, but Max is quieter than Ryan or Tom and Sean is feeling pretty low-key himself, so it all works out. Sean drops his bag at the foot of his bed, toes off his shoes, and strips off his jacket and hoodie before he collapses on the still-made bed in just his jeans and a sweat-stained t-shirt. 

Max doesn’t call him on it or tell him to change. Sean just listens to him putter around the hotel room, the creak of Max’s bed as he settles down. “Mind if I watch TV?” Max asks. 

Sean rubs his face into his pillow. “Go for it.” 

Max hums and then he hears the static-y flicker of the TV snapping on. He doesn’t know what Max is watching, he can’t hear more than the faint mumbling of whatever it is he found. Sean stretches out on the bed. The button of his jeans digs into his stomach. He knows that he should change clothes and not sleep in his stage clothes, he should probably shower while he’s at it, but he’s feeling too tired to do much but strip off his clothes and crash face-down in the mattress. 

“Salt,” Max says a few moments later. Sean still hasn’t moved, but he rolls over on his side and peeks over at Max. 

“What?” 

Max sets down his phone. “Salt wards off spirits. Well, at least that’s what the internet says.” 

“Well, there’s no source more reliable than the internet.” 

“They have a book,” Max says. “Ghost training 101,” Sean quirks an eyebrow and Max laughs. “I’m being fucking serious, dude. I _wish_ this thing didn’t exist.” 

Sean rolls his eyes but pushes off the bed to change his clothes. “How much is it?” 

“Sean,” Max says. He sounds disappointed that Sean would actually consider this. 

“What, dude? It might be legit! I mean, I never had some mystical teacher that emerged from the shadows to teach me about what I can do. It’s all kind of – ” Sean waves his hand around. “Guesswork.” 

Max folds his arms against his chest and rolls his eyes. “I’d bet a fairly big amount of tour money on the fact that you know more about spirits and shit than whoever wrote this book.” 

Sean pulls on a shirt, one that isn’t fresh and clean but doesn’t smell worse than the one he was just wearing. “Then I’m worried for the whole ghosting community. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. All I have is shit that would scare my mom.” 

“I don’t know, Sean,” Max says. He scratches a hand through his hair. “I think you have a knack for this. I really don’t think any of the rest of us would be faring as well as you are.” 

Sean finishes undressing and doesn’t say anything else. He lies down and thinks about what Max said. He doesn’t consider it a skill, not really. It’s just something that was always there. Sean feels like the last person to be qualified to say how the ghosts should be handled. It isn’t like singing (not that Sean thinks he’s the best at that, either); at least with singing, he knows he isn’t fucking up too badly. With ghosts, every day is a worry that Sean will fuck up and no one will be able to fix it. 

***

The next morning, Sean feels like his old self again. He showers before he changes and goes to meet the others down in the lobby for breakfast. The ghosts are still outside and Sean blows them off as they load their shit back into the van. Sometimes, he just has to, he can’t do it all. He’s thinking about tonight’s show and how music will always beat the spirit world – _always_. He’s surprised the ghosts are tamer than last night. Maybe, when you’re dead, you don’t tend to get your hopes up as much. 

Their meal comes from a greasy diner near the venue. Sean takes his backpack in with him. They spend half the meal ironing out the details of their set: which songs to cut if they run out of time (their sets always seem to be getting cut as of late), whose gonna run the merch table first, shit like that. They all chip in for the meal and, when Sean digs through his backpack for some cash, his hand brushes something weird. It’s papery and hard and he closes his hand around the cylinder shape, tugging it out of the bag. 

Sean sets the can on the Formica dining booth in front of him, nudging his plate out of the way. He raises his eyebrow at the label. “Salt?” he asks the table at large. “How did this get in my bag?” He immediately looks at Max, last night’s conversation coming back to him. 

Max takes a bite of his pancakes and shakes his head. “Wasn’t me, man.” He tilts his head to the opposite side of the table. Tom has already wandered away from them to go and play with the dimly lit jukebox that's tucked into the back of the diner; only Ryan and Julio remain. Sean really doubts the can came from Julio or Kodak, so he eyes Ryan. 

“He told me about it,” Ryan says, like even though he was the one who bought the salt or at least put it in Sean’s bag, it’s still Max’s fault for giving him the idea. “I figured it was worth a shot.” 

Julio looks confused, but if he thinks anything is strange, then he doesn’t say it. Sean turns the salt around so that the ingredients are facing him. “Let’s see…potassium iodide, glucose, calcium silicate, but nothing about ghost repellent.” 

Ryan frowns. “Very funny.” 

Max laughs and Sean smiles, trying to fight his own laughter down because, okay, it was nice of Ryan to try to help him. Sean picks up the can of salt. As he hefts the weight in his hand, he thinks of something. This morning, when they left the hotel, the ghosts seemed more placid, subdued, not one of them yelled at Sean for leaving without helping them. Could it really be because Ryan had slipped salt into his backpack? Sean doesn’t have time to think about it, though, because it’s time to pay for their food and head to the venue. In the end, he slips the salt back into position beside his wallet and notebooks. He definitely doesn’t miss the look Ryan gives him from across the table. 

The show goes fine; only one song from their set list gets cut because the band before them ran on too long. “I swear to God, each of their songs were, like, six minutes long,” Tom says around the butt of a cigarette as he and Max enjoy a post-show smoke outside the back of the venue. Sean is sweating and still running on stage endorphins. Ryan is inside selling merch – the crowd was good, receptive, so Sean hopes for a good haul. 

Max and Ryan switch positions so that Ryan can join them outside. Their gear is already loaded up and Sean and Tom are talking to some girls who are outside while Ryan takes his turn smoking. When the girls leave them, Sean is surprised to feel a presence behind him. He turns and it’s a man – well, a male ghost, but whatever. He’s older and looks like someone’s dad, like he’d hate the kind of music Sean’s band makes. 

“You can see me?” he asks, his voice rough, echoing like it’s trapped between two giant cavern walls. 

Sean nods. He doesn’t want to speak yet if he doesn’t have to. There’s no need to alert Tom and Ryan to the fact that there’s yet another ghost approaching him during one of their shows. 

“Really? You? The way they were talking, I was expecting someone…else.” 

Sean glances over his shoulder at Tom and Ryan and slips his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans, motioning towards the van like he’s going to take a call. Tom nods at him; Ryan doesn’t seem to notice his departure at all. The ghost follows him to the side of the van and Sean presses his phone to his ear. 

“Who’s been talking about me?” 

“The other ghosts, of course. They kept saying they could feel you. ‘Someone who gets us!’ they said! ‘Someone with power!’ I gotta say, I’m not impressed,” the ghost says as he sizes Sean up. 

“Is this your way of asking for help? I gotta say, it could use some improvement.” 

“Yeah, I did want something. Now, listen, I’m not going to beg or anything like that. It’s just…my kid is here tonight. She must be a fan or something. I want to talk to her.” 

“So you want me to recite what you want to say to her?” 

The ghost shakes his head. “No. I want to talk to my daughter.” 

“She can’t see you, though?” Sean asks. 

“No shit. I want to borrow your body.” The ghost must see the look on Sean’s face because he waves a hand at him. “Now, don’t go looking all terrified. I’m not going to keep it. I just have some stuff I want to say to her and you’re the only one who can see me.” 

“She won’t know it’s you! She’ll think she’s talking to me and she’ll – ” 

“She’ll know it’s me,” the ghost says. For the first time, his voice becomes softer. “Trust me.” 

Sean bites his lip. He’s only done the body swap thing a few times before. The first time, he was too young to realize what he was doing and he let a fellow “child” take over his body so that he could hug his mother one more time. The second time was when Sean was a teenager. The spirit was a classmate from his school, no one Sean knew personally, but sort of a person on the fringe of Sean’s social circle. The kid had wanted to go look at his house one more time before he left for good. That was it. Sean likes to think he’s smarter now, more cautious, and this ghost isn’t giving him the best vibes, but…he thinks of his own parents and how much he loves just hearing their voices while he’s on tour. If they were…fuck, he’d want someone like himself to do this for him. 

“How long would you want my body for?” Sean asks. 

The ghost opens his mouth to answer, but someone else talks first. 

“Sean?” Ryan asks. Sean turns around. Ryan is there, his eyebrows knitted together. He glances over Sean’s shoulder, like maybe he expected someone to be there.”Who are you talking to?” Sean looks at the ghost, who seems rather irritated with Ryan’s presence, and it’s enough for Ryan to get it. “One of them is here, aren’t they?” 

“Come on,” the ghost says. “Just for a little while. Enough time that I can talk to her. You’ll be safe, I swear.” 

“Sean,” Ryan says again. Sean looks at him – he’s got his chin tipped up, all defiance and challenge. If Sean is going to do this, then he can’t exactly lie about it. 

“There’s a spirit here, yeah.” 

“And it wants…what, your body?” 

“Yeah,” Sean says. “So he can talk to his kid.” 

Ryan crosses his arms. “And you’re actually considering it? Sean, what the fuck?” 

“It’s just so that he can talk to his kid, Ryan. I mean, he said he’d keep me safe.” 

“Sean, are you even listening to yourself? That’s not...that’s _dangerous_ , Sean.” 

“Ryan, you can't see him, but I can. He just wants to be able to tie up his unfinished business. That’s, like, the most important thing for ghosts.” 

“Come on,” the ghost urges again. “I’m losing time here.” 

Sean looks at him and raises an eyebrow. “I thought time was all you had?” 

“If she leaves, I’m fucked, smart ass.” 

“Sean, don’t do this,” Ryan says from behind Sean. 

Sean closes his eyes. “Make it quick,” Sean says. The ghost nods and the last thing Sean hears physically is Ryan swearing.

Being taken over by a ghost is weird. Sean doesn't leave his body or switch places with the ghost. It’s like he’s shelved, demoted to a passenger inside of his own body. Sean would say it feels like when you’re beginning to fall asleep, that loose feeling of leaving your conscious mind. 

He’s only mildly aware of what's happening on the outside. He can hear the ghost and the breathing of his own body but with the added fact that it’s not him that’s controlling it. 

***

Ryan can’t see the ghosts, but he knows the second that Sean isn’t really Sean anymore. His eyes close and then they open and sweep over Ryan. When their eyes meet, it just doesn't feel like Sean anymore. 

“Sean?” Ryan says even though he knows it isn't Sean in there. “Please tell me you didn’t do it, Sean.”

Whatever is inside of Sean’s body raises its ( _Sean’s_ ) hands and blinks, opening Sean’s mouth all the way like he’s testing the hinge of Sean’s jaw. 

“Your Sean is a good person. Not the smartest, but good,” the ghost in Sean’s body says. Even his voice sounds different – Ryan thought he had heard Sean’s voice in nearly every imaginable way, thought there wasn’t a tone he’d never heard before, but the way Sean’s voice feels now...no, Ryan has never heard _that_ before. 

“Where is he?” Ryan asks. His blood is running cold in his veins. He thinks he should call for Tom or Max, but he’s stuck in place by the thought that Sean might be lost to them now. 

Sean’s body takes a shuddering, sloppy step. He looks at Sean's feet. “Walking doesn’t feel like it used to. The air feels different.” 

“Where is Sean?” Ryan asks again. Sean’s eyes fall on him again and his face curves into a smile.

“He’s in here.” The ghost touches Sean's chest. The words don’t do anything to comfort Ryan. He can’t see Sean (not the real Sean, anyway) and he can’t feel Sean. The ghost’s words mean nothing. 

“Then let him go,” Ryan says. “Give him his body back.” 

“But I’ve got business to attend to,” the ghost says, taking another jerky, off step with Sean’s body. 

“Your kid, right? Where is she?” Ryan scans the few fans milling around in the parking lot. 

“About that…I kind of stretched the truth.” Sean's mouth is smiling again. Ryan feels sick to his stomach. Before he can do anything, the ghost inhabiting Sean’s body takes off at a run across the parking lot, dipping through the spaces between parked cars and heading towards the street that leads away from the venue.

Ryan doesn’t even give himself a second to think or to call for Tom or Max. He takes off after Sean’s body; the ghost seems to have gotten the hang of walking once again, because he’s _fast_. He runs seamlessly, just like Sean. Sean’s body is longer than Ryan’s and he has longer legs – he’s quicker, but where Sean’s body has him on speed, Ryan has him in tenacity. 

He’s able to catch up to Sean pretty quickly, though his chest is burning. He isn’t sure if the ghost being inside of Sean gives him some sort of super human stamina. “Stop!” Ryan yells. They’re near the end of the parking lot, away from the fans and the venue but way too close to the fairly busy main street that the building sits on. The ghost ignores him, of course, but as luck would have it, he stumbles over some loose concrete. On one hand, Ryan almost wants Sean to fall so that he can at least catch him, but on the other hand, he doesn’t actually want his Sean to get hurt. 

With that small fraction of time where the ghost inside of Sean lost its momentum, Ryan is able to close the distance between them, and though it's just barely, he grabs the sleeve of Sean’s jacket, tugging back hard so that Sean’s body falls backwards against him. He closes his hand around Sean’s arm because he isn’t thinking, because he was too worried about catching the ghost to remember Sean’s warning. 

He can tell the difference in the world instantly. With his hand on Sean’s arm, Ryan can _see_ what Sean sees all of the time. He looks at Sean and almost screams. He can see the ghost now – a man, looking nothing like Ryan was imagining. It’s so fucking weird that Ryan almost can’t even wrap his mind around what he’s seeing.

There’s Sean’s body, but the man’s spirit is outlined over Sean. Ryan remembers being younger, in science class – his teacher had a book about the human body with clear, plastic pages. The book was made so that you could lift each layer of a person’s insides, the skin first, then muscle, organs, and bones. Seeing the ghost inside of Sean is kind of like that. Sean’s body is one layer with the ghost fitting as another layer directly over that.

“What the fuck?” the ghost says. It sounds mystified, stunned, maybe even a little scared.

Ryan doesn’t let go of Sean; if anything, he holds on even tighter. He can feel his nails digging into Sean’s jacket. 

“Let go!” the ghost hisses. He can’t even move Sean’s body now, not for lack of trying. 

“Sean,” Ryan says. “Come on, come back.” 

“No! No!” The ghost is shouting. When Ryan looks beyond Sean and the ghost of the man, he loses his breath. There are more ghosts out here, standing in the road, sitting on hoods of cars, just watching them. None of them are quite as scary as Ryan imagined, but his heart is still pumping a mile a minute. 

He closes his eyes and tugs Sean’s body closer, like this is a game of tug and war with Sean’s physical form being the prize. “Get out!” he yells at the ghost, and then there’s silence, and then Sean feels lighter. Ryan snaps his eyes open and the male ghost is nowhere to be found. 

“Sean?” Ryan asks. 

Sean turns his head, eyes heavy like he’s just waking up. 

“What happened?” Sean asks. 

Ryan lets out the breath he’d been holding, relieved that it’s really Sean again. Over Sean’s shoulder, he can still see the ghosts milling around, watching them. Ryan hesitantly lets go of Sean’s sleeve. The world snaps back into place after that. No ghosts, nothing but he and Sean and the cars whizzing down the street that Sean had been so close to running out into. 

“You’re an asshole,” Ryan says to Sean, because he realizes that Sean's still waiting for an answer. He leaves then, leaving Sean standing there, dumbfounded. 

***

“So it didn’t work out like I thought it would,” Sean says. They’re back in the van, Max and Julio in the front seats and Ryan asleep in the far back. He’s pissed off at Sean and wouldn’t even talk to him after Sean came back to his body. Apparently, shit with the ghost didn't go well, according to what Ryan told Tom. 

Tom shrugs. “He's pretty freaked out. He saw what you see and I’m guessing that it’s not so nice if you aren’t already used to it. He’s not wrong, Sean. That shit was dangerous.” Sean makes a face at Tom, like he's saying 'you, too?’ Tom sighs. “Don't look at me like that. You're not a kid, you should know lending your body out to anyone, ghost or not, is a bad situation.” 

“And as an adult, I think I’m above lectures. You and Ryan aren’t my parents.” 

“No, but we’re your friends. We’re your band. Ryan was worried about you.” 

Sean leans his head back against the side of the window. He doesn’t want to even look at Tom because he’s so embarrassed. He hates when he fucks up, especially when it comes to his power. It isn’t the same as fucking up a note or tripping on stage – that kind of stuff happens to everyone. This ghost shit only happens to Sean. 

"Yeah, I know. I should’ve told that spirit ‘no.’ It’s hard, Tom.” 

“Because you want to help.” 

“Yeah.” 

“That's just the thing, Sean. You can’t _help_ everyone. As people, we accept that we can’t help every other person who may need us. It’s just too much. We can’t do it.” Tom points at Sean. “You need to apply that to ghosts, too. You can’t help them all.”

“There’s a difference. With people, yeah, I can't help them all, but someone else could. There could be another person right around the corner who could help them more than I could. For a spirit, who knows if there’s anyone else who can see them like I do? If I turn my back on them, how do I know if anyone else will ever help them?”

Tom tilts his head. “You don’t.” 

Sean nods. “And I hate that.” 

Tom picks at his nails and Sean watches his hands. He’s still afraid to catch the same snatch of disappointment that was so evident in Ryan’s face. “Don’t you have the basic instincts? You’re supposed to value your own survival, you know?” 

Tom doesn’t sound mad – he sounds irritated, but fondly so. It’s pretty much the way he always sounds. He understands their anger, though. It’s stressful enough to be in a band away from home, but it’s even harder to be a relatively small band. What they don't need is the fear that their lead singer is going to go and get himself lost in the spirit world. Sean’s pretty lucky that they put up with him at all. 

It’s not often that Sean gets burned by the spirits. Most of the ghosts that he’s interacted with have been like the woman who wanted to leave the letter for her daughter, honest spirits who wanted honest help. He can count the angry spirits he’s met on one hand at this point. But the meeting with this last spirit has him feeling reluctant to go out and talk to them again.

“I’ll be more careful,” Sean promises. “Really, I will. No more ghost shit at venues. Just music.” 

Tom smiles. “That’ll be nice for a little while.” 

They go to eat dinner and Ryan still won’t really talk to Sean. It’s clear that he’s not going to let what happened go any time soon, or at least until Sean actually finds a way to talk about what happened with him. As it is, the tension is heavy in the restaurant. Tom is trying to ignore it while Max is sighing very pointedly at the lack of conversation. 

After dinner is a drive to the next city. Tom grabs Sean’s arm on the way back to the van. “Hey, it’s your turn to drive while we sleep,” he says. Sean nods. Tom drops his cigarette on the pavement of the restaurant’s parking lot. “Ryan is co-piloting.” 

“Okay,” Sean says. His stomach flops around as he prepares for the longest, quietest ride of his life. Ryan and Julio are the last to return to the van. Max and Tom already tucked themselves up in the back seats. Tom’s wearing his headphones, so he’s dead to the world. Sean is leaning against the van, watching Ryan talk to Julio and laugh at something Julio said. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the sound until Ryan stopped talking to him, stopped laughing and smiling in his direction. 

“Hey,” Sean says once the two of them are close enough. Ryan stops, the smile on his face dropping off almost instantly. “Tom nominated us to drive to the next venue.” 

“Okay,” Ryan says. He doesn’t sound mad right now. In fact, he doesn't really sound like anything. That worries Sean. “You driving?” 

“Yeah.”

Ryan nods and then climbs into the passenger side seat of the van. Julio smiles at Sean and then takes his own spot in the back. Sean shuts the side door of the van before he walks around to the front of the van and takes his own spot. 

They don’t talk as Sean starts up the van or as Sean flicks on the headlights or when Sean pulls out of the restaurant and heads towards the nearest highway. 

Sean’s not that stubborn. He’d venture a guess to say that Ryan is more stubborn than he is – less than Tom and Max, but definitely more than Sean. He’s not talking to Ryan not out of stubbornness, but just because he doesn't really know what to say. It’s weird, because words are Sean’s whole life and now he doesn’t have any. 

While Sean is searching for his words, Ryan surprises him by talking first. “Am I going to have to put salt packets in your pockets?” He’s clearing aiming for joking, which is better than him snapping at Sean, so Sean smiles at him. 

“Would it help if I told you I’ve learned my lesson?”

They’re not looking at each other. The road in front of them is endless and dark. Sean can hear Ryan shifting around. 

“Sort of? I don’t think you understand how scared I was, Sean.” Ryan's voice is tight and quiet. Sean feels really bad for being so impulsive. 

“I’ve done it before,” Sean says. He still doesn’t look at Ryan. “Twice, actually, when I was younger. Nothing bad ever happened. It was like taking a break. I didn’t think that would happen.”

Ryan turns his head. Even though Sean isn’t looking at him, he can feel Ryan’s gaze hot on his face. “You didn't think he’d try to keep your body all for himself? Shit, Sean, I know you like to believe the best in people, but there’s a limit.” 

“Tom said the same thing.” Sean looks at Ryan now. When their eyes meet, all the heat in Ryan’s gaze melts away. 

“There are good people and bad people in this world, right?” Ryan says. 

“Yeah? I guess so, but – ”

“But,” Ryan continues, "when those good people die, some of them might become good ghosts, right? Then when those bad people die, what do you think happens to them?” 

“I’m not a fucking idiot, Ryan. I know there are bad spirits.” 

“Then why aren’t you protecting yourself against them?!” Ryan’s voice rises to an angrier pitch. Someone shuffles around in the backseat. “Any spirit can give you a sob story and you’ll bend over backwards for them.”

“I feel obligated to help them, Ryan. I – ”

“I know your reasons, Sean.” Ryan’s voice is pitching weird, angry one second and then wavering the next. Sean doesn’t know whether to brace himself or not. He supposes not. He chose to do this and he needs to hear what the others have to say. “But while you’re off worrying about all the spirits, we’re left here to worry about you.”

“I wish I could just ignore them,” Sean says. “Really, I do. It’d be easier if I could just tell them ‘no’ and not listen to them and not care about them for one second. Maybe I could focus on my own life, on the band, not balance everything at once.”

“Before, I might have thought it was easy to do,” Ryan says. He had been looking out the window, but he looks back to Sean now. “But I saw the shit you see every day and now...I don’t know how you do it, Sean.”

“What did you see?” Sean asks.

“They were all just...looking at me…looking at me like they knew I didn't belong there. God, I just...it was terrifying to have them all focused on me at once. I didn't know what they’d do.” 

“It’s harder to be scared of something that’s always been there.” 

“You telling me you’re never afraid?”

“No, I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m afraid of messing up, but I already did that now. I’m afraid of getting you guys hurt. I’m not afraid of the ghosts, but I guess I should be afraid of what they might do.”

“There was something else. I could see him inside of you – that ghost, I mean. He was outlined in your body, but your own spirit was nowhere. That was fucking weird. I don’t think I’ll ever forget what it looked like.” 

“Well, I’m sorry, Ryan.” Sean grips the wheel tight until his knuckles turn white. “I’m sorry you had to see it.”

Ryan just shrugs and settles back into his seat. The tension is gone now and they ride together in semi-silence. Ryan fiddles with the GPS app on his phone and turns the radio on low, just quiet enough for Sean and Ryan to be able to hear the alt rock station that Ryan favors. 

“I told Tom that I’d focus on the band when we’re on tour. No more ghosts at venues.” 

Ryan peeks at Sean over his shoulder. “Even if they have the saddest story in the universe?” 

Sean laughs and nods. “Even then, man.” 

He doesn’t mention it to Ryan or anyone else that night, but as Sean drives through the darkness, he realizes that he hasn’t encountered any spirits since he took control of his own body. There was none at the restaurant – fuck, Sean hadn’t even seen the ghost that tricked him once he came back or any of the other spirits that Ryan had saw while touching Sean. It’s unusual; it’s been years since Sean’s gone half a day without seeing anything. It’s nothing he’s truly worried about; if he’s being honest, he’s relieved at the temporary lapse in his power. It’s nice to be normal for a change. 

***

Sean sticks to his word, and at the next venue, there are a few ghosts. They don’t try to talk to him – maybe they can tell that he isn’t up for it, maybe they can feel the negative vibes pouring off of Sean. Either way, they don’t ask for help, so Sean doesn't have to say ‘no.’ He doesn't have to do anything except play their set, chat with fans, and have a few beers on the house. It’s actually pretty great. 

At some point, Ryan plops down on the bar stool next to him. He’s got one of the free beers and nods at Sean, raising his arm. Sean catches his drift and mimics the action, tapping their sweating beer cans together. “This was a great show,” Ryan says. 

Sean sips his beer and nods. “It really was.” It was a good show. Something felt different than the last few. Sean felt more energized, more alive, and the feeling was mutual between audience and band. Sean lives for shows like this one. 

“Are they here?” Ryan calls out, trying to be heard over the headlining band. 

Sean leans in closer. “Who?”

Ryan smirks around his beer. “The ghosts, dumbass. Are they here tonight?” He looks over both his shoulders, like he’s expecting to see a ghost behind him. 

“Yeah, they are. Just a couple in the parking lot. They usually don’t come inside.”

“Did they want help from Sean 'The Ghost King” Van Vleet?” 

“I don’t think so. They’re just hanging around. Maybe they like the tunes.” 

Ryan laughs. “Ghost fans don’t help albums sell.” 

The show is better, the band feels better, and somewhere in the back of his mind, it makes Sean feel worse. It’s a reminder, albeit a small one, of how much happier his band would be if Sean couldn’t see ghosts, or if he had just never burdened them by telling them about it, though the good feelings could also be attributed to how the tour is winding down and they’ll be home in Chicago in two shows’ time.

The ghosts are no longer hanging around the venue when Sean and the band pack up to leave for the night. It’s a weird, foreign thought, but Sean could kind of get used to this whole false normalcy thing. 

***

Michigan comes before Chicago and it’s close enough to home to drive Sean a little nuts. The show is good, the crowd is good, and the ghosts are nowhere to be found. Sean’s really looking forward to home, even more so if this trend of the ghosts not bugging him keeps up. The first apartment he lived in in Chicago, flanked by gritty alleyways, had been a hotbed of supernatural activity. The building was old and Sean was never surprised to run into spirits dressed in centuries-old clothing. Even if the ghosts are still there when he gets home, he’s still looking forward to sleeping in his own bed again. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Max starts. He’s leaning against the hood of the van, smoking. It’s cooler outside than it is in the venue; most of the time, if they don't have to play, Sean can find his band outside, cigarettes in hand. “You haven’t been seeing ghosts lately, right?” 

Sean shrugs. “A lot less than usual.”

“About that…what if it isn’t because you're still carrying around salt? I think it’s because of the vibe you’re putting out these days.” 

“My vibe?” 

“Yeah, man.” Max flicks the ash off the end of his cigarette. “Typically, you’re a very open person, very willing, so you gave off this inviting sort of energy, the same kind of thing that makes you a good lead singer.”

“Not that I don’t love when you compliment me, but are you going somewhere with this?” 

Max smiles. “Yeah, ever since your little body snatching fiasco, you’ve been hesitant about ghosts, right? You don’t want to deal with them during shows?” 

“Yeah, I guess.” Every time Sean thinks about that time, he keeps remembering the look on Ryan’s face when Sean came back to himself. It makes his stomach hurt. 

“The ghosts don’t like the bad mojo you're putting out,” Max says. 

In a way, what Max is saying makes sense. Since Sean was a kid, there have been ghosts, so when he encountered them, he tried to do so with an open mind and a curious heart. Ever since he’d been burned by the ghost the other day, ever since he disappointed Ryan and the others, he’s been less open, less willing to engage. Max is probably on to something here. 

“I never thought I had any control over it,” Sean says. “I’ve always figured I couldn’t stop them even if I wanted to. I never really tried before.”

“You might not be able to,” Max says. He’s finished with his smoke, so he drops it on the concrete before he scuffs it out. “I’m no expert.” 

Sean shrugs. He kind of wants to practice the theory right now, try to open himself back up and see if more spirits show up. Right now, there’s none, not one hanging around them. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, quietly telling himself that they can come to him, he’ll help if he can. He tries to be positive, to change his vibe. 

When Sean opens his eyes, he sees a ghost – just one, a woman. She’s flickering into view and smiling at him. Sean returns the smile, but then Max is talking and Sean loses his focus. He must close himself off without thinking about it, because the woman is gone then, disappeared like she was never there at all. 

“I’m not going to lecture you like the other two,” Max says. “I just want to play music, that’s all.” 

Sean is still watching the spot where the spirit had just been. “Yeah, me, too.” 

***

“Feels fucking good to be home,” Tom says as he stretches and hops out of the van. They got back to town early enough that they can all go home and shower before they have to head to the venue to set up. Hometown shows are always the best. At this point, there are more friends than fans in the crowd, and Nick is already waiting for them when they pull up in front of the venue to unload their shit. 

“My boys! How was the trip?” 

“We weren’t at summer camp, Scimeca,” Tom says, but Nick ignores him because he’s already tugging Ryan in for a hug. 

“You guys hungry? I know this place that just opened up. The owner likes me – that means free meals for my crew.”

“We kind of need to set up,” Max says from the back of the trailer. 

“Then we’re going out afterward,” Nick says. “No excuses.”

“That just means you’re going to take us to AK because you’re cheap as fuck,” Ryan says. Nick pushes him away while Ryan laughs. 

The show is fucking awesome. Sean feels so busy, so full of his normal life, that he doesn’t even think about the lack of spirits. He doesn't need them. He never asked for them, the same as he never asked for his gift, and without them, he can give Empires his undivided attention. 

True to his word, after the show, Nick wrangles them up and takes them out. It isn’t to Angels and Kings, but a smaller little place that Sean’s been to a million times over. 

“This is your treat, right?” Tom asks from his cramped position in the backseat of Nick’s car. 

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t go ordering the expensive shit.” 

The bar is an okay size and they’ve acquired enough of a regulars status that they’re recognized but don’t have to talk. Tom drinks shitty hipster beer. Max doesn't drink at all, but he likes hanging out and kicking Nick’s ass at darts. Ryan always drinks the hard shit, and this time, he drops in a seat next to Sean and hands him a drink. 

“I ordered you some whiskey.” 

“Thanks,” Sean says. He has to lean in to be able to talk to Ryan because someone is playing some loud shit on the jukebox. Ryan stinks like sweat, but that's usually what he smells like to Sean anyway. “It’s not my usual drink, though.”

“Yeah, but everyone else is pussing out on me,” Ryan says, holding up his own glass. It matches Sean’s. 

“Hey!” Nick says as he slides between them and up to the long bar counter. “We're going to make some toasts.” Nick makes them toast to a bunch of stupid shit; they toast to 'Ryan Luciani’s handsome face!' and 'the nice weather in Chicago!' and 'Tom’s awful taste in beer!' – to which Tom flips them all off before ordering another. 

“So,” Nick says once the toasting is all finished. He may be getting pretty wasted. Sean has no idea what he’s been drinking. A quick look around at all of them suggests they’re all getting there. Tom is probably the most sober of them all; when Sean looks at Ryan, he’s all red-cheeked and grinning. Sean feels like he must look like that, too. Ryan’s looking at him and laughing and Sean really likes Ryan's laugh, it might be his favorite laugh, which is weird to think about now, but he’s just happy to be hearing Ryan laugh at all. “What's next for Empires?” Nick asks. He holds his drink in Tom’s face like it’s a microphone. 

Tom pushes him away. “Ask Sean.”

Nick wheels around on Sean. “Sean Van Vleet. Dashing lead singer. What’s next for your band?”

Sean thinks about it. They get to relax. He gets to pour over his lyric notebooks, pick out shit he likes, show them to the band. They already have some stuff, older demos saved on Max’s computer, but whenever they tour, Sean always winds up with a million ideas jotted down on paper, lines that belong to no real song, but that he likes enough to not want to abandon the idea. They’re going to dick around in the studio and drink and try to think of future album titles that aren’t just one-word verbs.

“Strictly confidential,” Sean says. He pushes at Nick’s arm, making his drink slosh around and dribble onto the counter. 

By one in the morning, Sean is exhausted from touring and drinking. He asks Max to round everyone up so that they can go home. Ryan wants to go outside to smoke while they wait for Max to convince Nick to stop arguing with their fellow patrons over shit that doesn’t matter to anyone but Nick. Sean follows him outside into the cool breeze of the night.

Ryan is drunker than Sean, so he leans against the brick-faced wall of the bar, the rough stone scratching up the worn leather of Ryan’s jacket. He’s fumbling through his pockets for his lighter, a cigarette already dangling from his mouth.

“Are you going to go home with Nick?” Sean asks. He reaches out to grab a hold of Ryan’s arm because he’s got both hands in his pockets and is threatening to topple over.

“No, I don’t want to.”

Sean raises an eyebrow at Ryan. He usually stays with Nick while they’re home, sometimes alternating between Max, Sean, and Tom.

“I don’t want to go home with Nick. He’s a dick when he’s drunk.”

Sean laughs. “He’s a dick all the time.” 

“Well, yeah, so let me come home with you. I like your couch better anyway.” 

“Alright,” Sean says. Ryan finally finds his lighter, but by the time he’s lit his smoke, Max is coming out with Tom and Nick in tow. 

“How are we doing this?” Max asks.

“Tom at his place, Nick at his place, Ryan at my place,” Sean says. 

Max quirks an eyebrow at him, but Sean ignores it. “I should take Nick’s car home with me, make him come pick it up when he’s hung over.”

“Bro,” Nick says weakly, "don’t do that to me.”

They walk around the side of the bar to the sparse parking lot. The five of them pile into Nick’s car. Max is driving and Sean grabs the passenger seat, so Ryan is stuck between Nick and Tom. Nick is a pretty awful drunk. Tom is pretty solid if you don't piss him off. Ryan smiles a lot. Sean finds himself glancing back at Ryan in the rearview mirror, seeing Ryan smiling at him. 

They drop Tom off first. He’s alright, so they don’t need to follow him inside the building to make sure he gets home safe. Sean and Ryan are next; Ryan has a bit of a harder time than Tom, but Sean isn’t _that_ drunk, so he makes up for it. He hits the roof of Nick’s car and promises to text Max about band-related business tomorrow before he leads Ryan inside. 

They get into the tiny elevator. Ryan is talking, but Sean isn’t exactly listening; he’s focusing really hard on the glowing dings of the floors they’re on. 

“Sean, you still have Tom’s old bed?” 

“That’s kinda weird. Why would I keep his bed?” 

“Because you two are pretty weird.” 

“I have a blow-up mattress in there.” Sean sleeps in Tom’s old room sometimes, usually on hot summer nights – it’s cooler than his room. 

“Fuck yeah,” Ryan says. He closes his eyes during the ride. 

"Don’t fall asleep or I swear I will leave you here.” 

“You won’t. Someone would rob me. I’m very vulnerable right now.” 

No one has been inside Sean’s apartment in two months – well, except for Sean himself, when he stopped by before the show to dump his old spoiled milk and take a shower. The front desk has his mail and he had opened a window before he left for that night’s show so that the weird non-lived-in smell is thankfully gone. 

Ryan toes off his shoes at the door and almost collapses on the couch, but Sean grabs him at the last second. 

“Air mattress?” he asks. 

“Right, old habits,” Ryan says. Sean points him in the right direction and gives him a push. Ryan toddles off towards Tom’s old room, like some kind of busted wind-up toy. 

Sean almost wants to sit on the couch and watch TV, but the weariness of tour combined with the alcohol in his system has caught up with him and, suddenly, he’s very tired. If he watched TV, he’d just fall asleep out here on the couch, wake up sore, and then feel bad that he didn’t just give his bed to Ryan. 

He strips down to his boxers and then peeks in on Ryan. He’s lying face down on the blow-up mattress, head turned away from Sean. He’s still wearing his clothes, even his leather, and Sean almost wants to go and at least get him out of that, but something stops him. It feels too intimate. 

He shrugs and leaves Ryan, goes to his own room, makes sure his cell phone is on, and then falls asleep. 

Unfortunately, sleep doesn’t last long for Sean. He wakes up and it’s still dark in his room. It can’t have even been more than two hours since he went to sleep. At first, he isn’t sure what woke him up. He’s not a puker, though he is definitely still buzzed. Someone clears their throat and Sean’s mind says 'Ryan?' before he can comprehend what’s in front of him. 

It’s not Ryan, not even close. A ghost is standing at the end of Sean’s bed. It’s a woman – young, probably around Sean’s age. She’s got one hand on her hip and the other hanging at her side. In the darkness of the room, she glimmers. 

“What the hell,” Sean says. “No. I was sleeping.” 

“You don’t even know what I’m here for.” 

“No, I don’t care. What the hell, can’t you feel my bad mojo?” 

She makes a face at him. “I definitely sensed a change in the energy here. When you first came home, you were much more inviting.”

Sean flops back in his bed. He hadn’t considered that. He got drunk and the buzzed-up state left him all giddy at the world, the afterlife included. He’s not as in control as he had thought. That’s somewhat disconcerting.

He grabs his phone up and the light is blindingly bright. It’s five in the morning; they got home around three. “Even if I was inviting you here, I'm too tired to write letters or let you take my body.” 

“I’m not here for that. You’ve been pushing away your spiritual side lately,” the ghost says. “You’ve been fighting it when we need you the most.”

Sean props himself up on his elbows. “That’s just the thing! You guys _always_ need me. I don't have time for that anymore. Your lives are over. I need to focus on _my_ life now.”

It’s the harshest Sean has ever been to a ghost, but he feels like he owes it to the band to be honest with himself and the spirits, even if it gets him into deeper shit.

The ghost of the woman doesn’t seem moved by his words, not even insulted by them. She’s just looking at him with big, vacant eyes. “That isn’t how this works,” she says. “You have this power and you may _think_ that you can turn it on and off, but you can’t. We weren’t coming to you out of respect – ”

“That fucking ghost tricked me and tried to steal my body! Why should I listen to anything you say? Show me respect, then I’ll give it back to you.”

“We don’t control the wicked spirits,” she says. “You have to use your own judgment, unfortunately. Now, as I was saying, we didn’t bother you out of respect and that fact that you’d be less willing to hear what we have to say – and trust me, this is important.”

“I don’t care what it is. I’m not interested.”

“Something is happening. A big, big change. We need your help.”

“No!” Sean shouts. “All I want to do is make music. I don’t want to know anything about the spirit world. I don’t want to help you anymore!”

Right before Sean’s eyes, more spirits blink into existence in his bedroom – men, women, little kids who look centuries old, all of them crowding around Sean’s bed, just looking at him, neither angry nor happy…just there. This is the most ghosts he’s ever had concentrated on him at one time. 

“There is no one but you,” the woman spirit tells him. “Only you can help.” 

Sean reaches blindly for something on the nightstand next to his bed. His hand wraps around something heavy and large – probably the vase that his mom or an ex gave him once upon a time – and, without thinking, he wings the vase at the leader of the spirits. Of course, it doesn’t hit her, doesn’t even affect her. But the ghosts do flicker out after that, each one blinking out like dying lights until only the original female ghost remains. She just looks at him, sighs, and then she’s gone, too. 

Sean’s angry, and the loud crash from the vase meeting the molding around his door frame has him all rattled. In an instant, his carefree life was snatched from him, just like that. Even worse, the spirits exerted just how much control they have over him. It doesn’t matter what Sean wants. It probably never did. 

Somehow, Sean is able to fall back to sleep, and the next time he wakes up, it’s well into the afternoon. This time, it’s human noises waking him up. 

He can smell coffee, the instant kind that he keeps in the cupboard, so Ryan is probably up. He doesn't want to be awake just yet, so he lies there and listens to Ryan bustling around his apartment. He does sit up when he hears a faint, Ryan-like “Ow.” 

Ryan is standing in the doorway, raising one foot off of the hardwood floor. “What the hell happened?” Ryan asks. If Sean really pays attention, he can see the tiny droplets of crimson dripping the small distance from the bottom of Ryan’s raised foot to the floor. 

Sean scrubs a hand across his face. “Ghost shit. You don’t have to clean that up.” 

Sean can see the flash of fear cross Ryan’s face, but it falls away quickly. “Well, I _am_ bleeding all over your floor.”

“Yeah, go take care of that and I’ll get this.” 

Ryan hobbles off to the bathroom to clean his foot and Sean crouches down to pick up pieces of the broken vase. Cleaning up reminds him of what happened, reminds him that it wasn’t a dream like Sean had been hoping when he first woke up.

“You said something about ghosts?” Ryan calls from the bathroom. 

“Yeah,” Sean says. “It’s not a big deal.” 

“It was if it was enough to make you break something.” Ryan’s voice draws closer; Sean can hear his footsteps. He’s still on his knees on the floor, picking up broken pieces of ceramic, when Ryan comes back, standing far enough away to not hurt himself again. 

Sean looks up at him and feels weird. He’s still only in his boxers and he’s bent on his knees, feeling weirdly exposed because he lost his temper. Ryan looks at him expectantly. 

“Sean, if something is going on – ”

“Nothing is going on, man. I guess I don’t like ghosts when I’m drunk. Can you bring me the dustpan?” 

Ryan nods and walks away, his injured foot moving gingerly. Sean feels bad for lying and tries to recall exactly what the ghost said to him the night before. It’s hard. It feels too much like a dream with the added cocktail of post-tour weariness and too many whiskeys. His knees hurt on the hard floor of his room, but he isn’t hung over. He remembers enough to know that she said something big was going to happen, something they want Sean to be a part of. 

Ryan returns with the dustpan before Sean can make a mental list of the pros and cons of telling him and, by extension, the band the truth. Sean ditches the broken vase in the pan and Ryan dumps it before he comes back with the broom, handing it off to Sean. Once the mess is cleaned up, Sean finds Ryan stationed on the couch, flicking absentmindedly through channels. 

“Are you hungry?” Sean asks. “I can make something.”

“That’d be great,” Ryan says. He leans his head back on the couch and turns to look at Sean. The mid-afternoon sun that filters in through the glass balcony door is hitting Ryan in a funny way, a way that makes Sean wish Tom were here with a camera in hand. “Except you don’t have shit in your fridge.” 

“Looks like a trip is in order.” 

“I’ll come with,” Ryan says. He tries to get up from the couch, but he puts pressure on his cut foot, and even though he tries to hide it, Sean sees him wince. 

“Just stay here, solider.” Sean goes to get dressed, but all his clothes are in his suitcase and none of it is clean. He winds up picking through it to find what smells the least and tugging it on. “Any requests?” 

Ryan rubs at his stomach, inching the hem of his t-shirt up so that Sean catches just a tiny sliver of pale stomach. He’s not even sure why he’s looking in the first place. 

“Waffles. My mom makes these awesome waffles.” 

“I’m not your mom.”

Ryan snorts. “Yeah, and I bet you make shitty waffles.” 

“Well, maybe you can go sleep on Tom’s couch and he’ll make you waffles.” 

Ryan makes a face. “His are probably even worse than yours.” 

“Cereal and orange juice it is, then!” Sean says. He slips on his shoes and grabs his wallet and phone. “If I’m not back in two hours, you’ll have to forage on your own.”

Ryan flips him off and keeps flicking through channels.

While Sean is shopping, Tom calls him. “Good afternoon, beautiful. Still sleeping? Nursing a hang over?” 

“You were way drunker than I was last night,” Sean says instead of a greeting. “And no, I’m shopping.” 

“Is Ryan with you?” 

“He’s at my place, waiting for breakfast.” 

Tom laughs on the other end. “Who knew you were the domesticated type?” 

“Shut up. Are we going to get together today or should we wait a bit before jumping in to things?”

“Max is kind of chilling out. I’m doing a bit of having the hair of the dog that bit me. You and Ryan are – ”

“Eating a late breakfast,” Sean answers for him. 

When Sean gets back to his apartment, Ryan is still watching TV. At first, Sean doesn’t pay attention to it, but then he catches snippets of things like “EMF,” “haunting,” and “investigators.” 

“What the hell are you watching?” Sean asks. “And come put these groceries away.” 

Ryan meets him in the kitchen and shrugs. “Ghost shows.”

“Why are you watching those?” 

“Research.” Ryan leans against the counter. “Hey, Sean, how accurate are those shows? I swear, this one I’m watching can’t be real. This guy just challenged a ghost to prove its existence by fist-fighting him.” 

Sean grabs some bowls and sets them on the counter. “I don’t know, Ryan. I don’t watch them. I don’t need to see other people dealing with ghosts when I have some of my own.” 

They make cereal and sit side-by-side on the couch, which dips in the middle from all the times Ryan or others have slept over. The dip makes them fall together in the middle. Their thighs are touching. Ryan is wearing thin sleep pants, probably a pair he’d left over at Sean’s sometime before, and even though Sean is wearing jeans, he can still feel the warmth that’s radiating off of Ryan. 

“Okay, you’re right. This guy is a complete fraud.” Though Sean never tested whether he could see ghosts through a TV, he’s sure that if they were specifically looking for ghosts and claiming to find them, he’d be able to see them at least partially. “He’s yelling at air.” 

Ryan snorts into his cereal. “I knew it.” He grabs the remote and cues up another program, some other odd ghost hunting show. “Anything here?” 

“Did you find every ghost show or something?” 

“You could have a show. Think about it: a literal band of ghost hunters. It’d be ratings gold.” 

Sean finishes his cereal first and sets the bowl on the table. “You’re being a lot more positive about this ghost thing.” 

Ryan is still eating, so he swallows thickly before he speaks. “I don’t know. I was getting pretty frustrated on the road; the whole body swap shit freaked me out. Now that I’m home, I feel a little better. I was mostly joking anyway.”

“Whoa, hey, we have something here,” Sean says. He points at the TV where the host of the show – some kid younger than Sean – is trying to speak to a ghost. It’s obvious that he doesn’t have the sight like Sean does because he’s turned away from the spirit.

“You ever think about wanting to meet other people like you? Someone who actually has the same power? They have groups for everything these days.” 

Sean scratches a hand through his hair. He’s never told anyone except the band about his power. It feels weird to him to trust that information to someone he doesn’t know, even if it’s a shared burden. Fuck, his parents don’t even know, people he dated never knew. His band is it and if Sean is being honest, he’d like to keep it that way. 

“I don’t know. People would end up thinking I’m crazy or something.” 

Ryan nudges Sean’s side. “I don’t think anyone would think that, Sean.” 

Sean smiles. “Then you’ve been around me for too long.” 

Ryan stays the night at Sean's place again. They both chill out, opening up the balcony door so that the cool breeze can infiltrate the apartment. Ryan doesn't even change his clothes. Even though they just got home, Sean can’t put the workaholic side of him away even for a night. He’s in his room, digging out all the journals he uses for writing lyrics, trying to decipher the mess of words he writes in his phone, gearing up for when they get to go to the studio and work some shit out. 

Sean’s sitting on the floor in the living room with the journals open in front of him. Ryan’s lying stretched out on the couch. He’s flipping channels again. It’s almost irritating, but Tom was always ten times worse when it came to deciding what to watch, so Sean mostly tunes it out. He winds up on the local news, though, and something must catch his attention, because Sean doesn’t hear the channel change again. 

“Hey, Sean,” Ryan says. 

“Hm?” 

“This news report says that there’s been an upswing in missing people lately.” 

“In the city?” Sean asks. 

“Nah, all over the state, I guess. There’s been three so far.” 

“Huh. Are all our friends accounted for?”

Ryan yawns and changes the channel. “I think so.” 

The ghosts don’t return that night – at least, not to Sean’s room. He can’t fall asleep, though, and he gets up a few times to check the living room, to peek into the spare room where Ryan’s sleeping. There’s nothing in the apartment, but on his way back to bed, he gets the idea to look out the small square of window in his bedroom. The window falls down on to the sidewalk. It’s dark, but Sean can see them clearly. There are at least four spirits standing down on the sidewalk, their heads tipped up, eyes seemingly locked on Sean’s. 

He shivers. For the first time in a very long time, he’s feeling very unsettled, almost verging on fear. He grabs a jacket from his floor, tugs it on, and goes to the balcony, sliding open the glass door as quietly as he can so as to not wake Ryan. The balcony is facing out at the same sidewalk as his bedroom window. As soon as Sean steps outside, the ghosts’ heads snap to look at him. This is weird – the energy in the air feels stuffy, not what Sean is used to. 

He waits to see if they’ll come to talk to him. He’s not going downstairs at three in the morning to have a fucking conversation with a ghost. None of them come to him. They just stand there on the ground and look up at him with dark eyes. Sean waits for too long – he doesn’t even know how much time passes before he goes back inside and tries to fall asleep. He doesn’t check if the ghosts are still outside; he doesn't look out his window. He just crawls into bed, still wearing his jacket, and eventually, he passes out. 

***

The next day, Ryan decides to be more productive, so he offers to do their laundry, which is a nice gesture considering the fact that almost everything Sean owns is dirty. Sean even offers to go with – or he would, if it wasn’t ungodly early and he had gotten more sleep. 

“I have some quarters,” Sean mumbles.

He hears Ryan laugh and Sean’s automatic response is to smile at the noise. “Save ‘em. I’m going to Nick’s.”

Sean mumbles something that might be a reply and starts dozing off again. He’s faintly aware of hearing the front door to his apartment close sometime later, but after that, he’s out again. For most of his life, Sean’s never dreamt. He doesn’t know if that part of him was scooped out, sacrificed for the ability he does have, but he doesn’t dream. He sleeps and it’s nothing but pure, black silence.

A body crawling into his bed breaks that silence. Sean is turned away from where the person who’s joined him is sitting. He should probably be more afraid than he is, but fuck, he just woke up and nothing is making sense right now. A cold hand touches the center of his back where his comforter had fallen away. Sean presses his face into his pillow. 

“Ryan?” he asks, his voice muffled. 

The person laughs. It’s not Ryan. Sean raises his head and smells the sweet tang of nicotine and metal. Tom. “Is Ryan crawling into your bed enough of a frequent occurrence that you thought I was him?” Tom asks, clearly delighted in the situation. 

“Ugh, fuck off.” Sean collapses back into the pillow. 

Tom tugs back the blanket and Sean tries to kick him without actually moving or waking himself up. He fails at both. Reluctantly, he rolls over on to his back. “Your shoes better be off,” he warns. 

“Yeah, yeah, now wake up and keep me company.” Tom climbs out of Sean’s bed. “Do you have any beer?” 

“No.” Sean pulls the pillow over his face in a vain attempt at going back to sleep. 

“Good thing I brought some, then.” 

Sean has coffee and Tom drinks a beer. They settle together on the couch. 

“Where _is_ Ryan, by the way?” Tom asks. He sets his beer on the coffee table and then picks up a camera from the floor. It’s one of his nicer ones, never one that’d he take on tour. 

“Went to Nick’s.” Sean has one of his journals sitting on his knee. He’d tabbed some pages in it to show to Tom and Max the next time he saw them, but it doesn’t feel like Tom wants to jump right to working. He’s busy fiddling with his camera, viewing Sean’s living room through the camera’s lens, like it will show him an entirely new world. Maybe it will. Sean’s never been good at this picture stuff. 

“I’m kind of surprised he even came here,” Tom says. He sets his camera down to make sure he didn’t offend Sean, “I mean, I thought he’d want a break from all your ghost buddies instead of living with them.”

Sean shrugs. “Yeah, I don’t know. He only slept here two nights – not exactly a commitment. You know Ryan.” In fact, he’s probably broaching Nick right this second about crashing at his place for an indefinite amount of time. Something about the thought makes Sean’s throat feel tight, but he ignores it. “Besides,” Sean says, “not a lot of supernatural activities here lately.” It’s not exactly a lie. Sean doesn’t feel like worrying anyone. 

Tom’s got his camera up to his face again. He snaps a picture of the darkened archway that leads back to the bedrooms. He looks at the screen, makes a face, and then Sean hears the beep of the picture being deleted from existence. “I think,” Tom says, aiming the camera at Sean but not hitting the button, “that you’re lying about that.” 

“Why would I lie?” 

“Because Ryan texted me the other night to ask if you’d ever talked in your sleep before and I told him it only happened when a ghost had come to see you.” 

Sean makes a face. So Ryan had heard his conversation with the spirit of the woman the other night – but he’d been drunk, couldn’t physically see the ghosts, and thought Sean was sleep-talking. He wonders why Ryan didn’t bring it up. 

“I was looking some stuff up,” Tom says. It’s clear he’s moved on to something else now. He flits around in conversation easily, avoiding what he doesn’t want to keep discussing and saying the bare minimum of what he feels he needs to. Sean kind of envies that about him. “Ryan seeing your ghosts got me thinking.” 

“You want to see ghosts?” Sean asks. 

“I want to photograph a ghost.” Tom shrugs. “That’d be fucking cool.” 

“They look like people, only…just a little off. Not as exciting as you’d think.” 

“Stop being a buzzkill. It says you can capture them with a standard digital. Isn’t that cool?” Tom hefts his camera up in his hand. “A piece of the ordinary capturing a ghost. I read a book once,” Tom continues. Sean looks up at him from where he was staring at the cover of his notebook. He’d really like to just talk about the band. His whole promise was how he’d focus on the music, but lately his band is doing anything but. “It had a folktale in it. I don’t remember where it was from, but it said that when you take a picture of someone, you capture a piece of their soul.” Tom says all of this through the lens of his camera, pointed squarely at Sean. 

“I’ve heard that, too,” Sean says. He watches Tom’s finger hover over the shutter button. 

He can see Tom’s mouth quirk up into the smallest of smiles. “That always stuck with me. The idea of capturing something, a piece of something no one else can see. Maybe that’s why I want to take pictures of a ghost. They’re nothing but soul.” 

Sean rolls his neck so that he’s looking at Tom – well, at the camera, but it’s almost the same thing. 

“You sound like a ghost hunter or something.” He doesn’t know what Tom’s getting at. Sometimes, he gets weird in a way that makes it harder for Sean to understand him. 

Tom shrugs. “I don’t know, running around, collecting souls…it sounds pretty cool.”

Tom never moves the camera. Sean thinks back to all the pictures Tom’s ever taken of him, how it’s second nature at this point and he isn’t even gun shy about it anymore. “So, how about it, Sean?” Tom asks. “Can I take a piece of your soul?”

“You might have all of it at this point,” Sean says. 

Tom smiles with all teeth, but he turns to face the window, the curtains are drawn back and the sun is edging to setting. Tom takes a picture of the orange creamsicle slice of sky that’s visible through the window instead of stealing a piece of Sean’s soul. 

“Ryan made me think of it again,” Tom says. He’s still facing the window and Sean can hear the snap and shutter of the camera at least three more times. “Somehow I thought it’d be a good way to fight ghosts.”

Sean frowns even though Tom can’t see him. “Tom, I don’t – ” 

Tom looks back at him now, waving a hand at Sean. “Yeah, I know you don’t _fight_ them.” Tom is quiet for a moment. He stretches his legs out from the couch, scraping his heels against the wooden floor of the living room. “Still, though,” he says, bringing the camera up to his eye again. He turns to Sean. “I’d love to catch one on film.” Sean hears the shutter and doesn’t even blink at the flash as Tom takes a picture of him, not for the first time owning a little piece of him. 

***

Tom leaves a half-hour before Ryan turns up with a garbage bag full of freshly laundered clothes. “Hey, man,” he says, setting the bag on the floor near the living room closet. “Did you cook?” 

“Tom,” Sean says, waving a hand at the empty plates dirtying up the counter. About the time Ryan toes his boots off at Sean's door, he figures out that Ryan isn’t just dropping off the clean clothes and heading back to Nick’s. Ryan makes a face. "Not sorry to have missed that. What’s in store for tonight?” 

Sean shrugs and sets the dirty plates into the sink. He’s still living on the reasoning of just coming off tour as an excuse for slacking off around the house. He’ll clean the apartment eventually, just like they'll record eventually and Sean will pick up some shifts at the coffee shop eventually. All in due time. 

“Light drinking and bad TV? Tom was thinking we’d meet up at Max’s tomorrow. What about you? You and Nick going to do something?” 

Ryan shrugs out of his jacket and hangs it on the back of one of Sean’s kitchen chairs. “Probably not. I’ll probably just hang here if it’s cool with you.” 

Sean looks up from the sink at Ryan. “Yeah, man, fine by me. Tom did leave some beer behind.” 

“Sweet.” Ryan slips into the kitchen, slides past Sean, and digs around in the fridge, setting two cans out on the counter. Ryan picks up his can and raises it in a toast at Sean. “Meet you on the couch,” Ryan says. He slips away and pads back out into the living room. 

Sean looks at the dishes in the sink, the beer can that’s already sweating. It reminds him of when he and Tom and Ryan all lived together. Even back then, he wondered what it’d be like minus Tom. He doesn't mean it rudely; he’s lived with just himself and Tom (give and take a dog) and knows what it’s like as a two-person system. What he’s curious about is what home feels like when the word means himself and _Ryan_. 

In his head, Sean can very clearly hear Tom laughing at him. 

Sean joins Ryan on the couch. Thankfully, he’s not watching any ghost shit, just some movie that Sean can’t place the name of. The couch kind of sucks in the way that, even if you begin at opposite ends, pressed against the arm, you still end up sinking in the middle. Sean and Ryan both end up there, thighs touching again. That’s not weird. What’s weird is how perfectly content Sean’s been feeling all day; usually, he’s pushing for the next thing, for what they’re going to do, when they’ll hit the road. Today, he’s fine with nothing except shitty beer and Ryan’s thigh warm against his. 

He falls asleep like that on the couch. The next time he’s woken up, it’s by the clatter of the remote slipping off the couch and hitting the floor. Sean’s eyes open. He’s so comfortable on the ratty, old couch that he doesn’t really want to investigate the noise or find out what time it is. The movie is over and the local news is on. Sean is tipped partially on his side, his head rising and falling in time with someone else’s breathing. 

When he lifts his head, Ryan’s body shifts. Sean had been sleeping against him, his head tilted awkwardly against Ryan’s shoulder. Sean’s tired and the newscaster on the TV is talking too fast and too loud for his liking. Ryan is all slack and soft against the couch and _shit_ , he isn’t awake. Sean is almost tempted to just stay there because everything is warm and comfortable, but a feeling tugging at the pit of his stomach stops him. 

Instead, he sighs and shifts to push himself up and away. They don’t even sleep next to each other in the van or hotel rooms, so Sean shouldn’t be a fucking weirdo when he has a perfectly good bed in the other room. He keeps quiet so that Ryan won’t wake up, but when he turns off the TV, he hears a sleepy mumble. 

“Sean?” Ryan’s voice is rough from sleep, the same way it’s rough when Ryan’s been talking too much or yelling or drinking. Sean likes it all those times, too. “You going to bed?” 

“Yeah, it’s late.” 

“Alright. I’m gonna sleep here.” Ryan yawns and stretches his tiny frame out on the sagging cushions of the couch. 

Sean doesn’t question him. He hits the bathroom and then his bedroom, but before he can lie down, he remembers how drafty the living room gets. He feels too bad to let Ryan sleep out there without a blanket. He drags one of his extra comforters off his bed – it’s that strange time of year in Chicago where it’s fall but the chill hasn’t really set in quite yet; plus, he has the working heater, so he can spare it – out to the living room. Ryan looks like he’s already asleep again. Sean drapes the blanket over Ryan before he returns to his room, feeling decidedly less warm in his bed with a blanket and a working heater than he did on the shitty couch next to Ryan.

***

The next day is finally studio time. Sean’s had his handful of days of rest, but now the need to create is backing up inside of him, fighting for a way out that has Sean dying for a guitar or microphone. He and Ryan head to Max’s place, but Tom isn’t there. 

“He went to check on Jon’s place,” Max says. Sean feels like it’s going to be a good day because Max looks as excited as Sean feels. “Let’s just start without him.” 

“Did he want us to?” Ryan asks. He heads to his partially assembled kit in the room and starts setting it up the way he always does. Sean watches him for a moment, so in his element in a way that Ryan never seems to be in any other aspect of his life. They kind of all are like that, though. 

Max pushes his hair out of his face. “If he wants to dick up our plans by hanging around his ex’s place, that’s his prerogative. He won’t miss much.” 

Neither of them argues. Max is usually right about these kinds of things; he falls easily into their parental role during studio time despite being the youngest among them. Sean is excited to show Max a melody he’s had in his head for days. He’s been replaying it mentally to keep it around long enough to put it down to paper. He makes a beeline for a guitar and starts warming up on it. Ryan is already testing out his drums, like the short time he hasn’t played them has made him rusty. It’s a useless fear – he’s just as good as he always is. Sean takes a moment to watch him. He’s on this strange little beat that Sean likes, so he tries to memorize that, too, so that he can ask for it again if he needs to. 

Sean and Max play off of each other. Usually, Tom would fit here, too, more comfortable telling them his opinion than he ever was with William and company. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t notice the evolution of the four of them. Their music is turning into something darker than before, grittier, tunes that make Sean think of gravel and brick and that shitty alley near his first apartment that the ghosts used to hang out in. Sean hadn’t really intended the change, but he never does. He thinks he had more of a hand in it than the others – not that it doesn’t sound natural, because it does, but mostly, he’s blaming the ghosts. 

He’s got the literal ghosts that haunt him, as well as the metaphorical ones. The ghosts have stories and they’re eager to share them. They whisper them to Sean in the dead of the night, when he’s got the better part of a bottle of liquor in his belly and his handwriting is even shitter than usual. If they have a purpose beyond being a huge burden in Sean’s life, it’s their service of being a muse. Inspiration is tricky. Sometimes, it feels better to live out someone else’s life via song than to peek into the dark recess of your own. 

When they get into the groove of working on music, it takes a lot to break the string of concentration. It takes even more to pull Sean from it. He wants everything to match to the sound in his head and, when he can’t achieve it, he’ll usually keep trying until either he does or Max fixes it. Max, Tom, or Ryan can usually fix it. They’re still just laying groundwork. Everything is kind of up in the air at this point, but Sean likes the chaos of it, throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. 

Max nudges his foot against Sean’s knee. “Tom’s on his way back,” he says when Sean looks up. 

“About time,” Sean says. Tom’s been gone for almost two hours, which is weird because Jon isn’t home, isn’t even in the same country as them right now. A short time later, there are footsteps on the stairs and they can hear Tom talking to someone. The replying voice is either too foreign or too quiet for Sean to recognize. 

Tom enters first, smiling all big and stupid. “I found a scraggler hanging around Jon’s place.”

“You did not bring an animal here,” Max says. 

“I’m toilet-trained, I swear,” the person behind Tom says. He steps aside and, huh, Ryan Ross is standing there. 

To say that Sean is surprised to see him is saying the least. He’s used to seeing Ryan only in the context of a visit from Jon where Ryan tagged along, but Jon has fled the country and, as far and with the limited knowledge Sean has of Ross, he prefers California to Chicago this time of year. 

“Hey, man,” Sean says with a smile. “Didn’t think I’d see you around here.” 

Ross shrugs and scratches at the back of his head. “Well, I don’t know, Jon always made a big deal about Illinois this time of year. I thought I’d see it for myself, and while I was here, I thought I’d generously drive by Jon’s place and make sure it was alright, maybe check his mail – ”

“More like squat there for the rest of the winter where they’d undoubtedly find your de-thawing body next spring,” Tom finishes for him. Ross laughs again. Out of all four of them, Tom has the most history with Ross and is clearly the most comfortable around him. Sean exchanges a look with their Ryan, who just shrugs and smiles. 

Ryan Ross being in their studio – hell, being in Chicago itself – isn’t even the weirdest part of this whole situation. That honor belongs to the fact that Sean can clearly see the spirit that’s attached itself to Ross. It isn’t an uncommon thing, necessarily. This isn’t even the first time that Sean has seen this happen. The clearest memory he has of seeing an attached spirit was when he was younger, riding in the car with his parents on the way to his grandmother’s house. 

They were driving slowly through this little section of town that was unfamiliar to Sean at the age of eight. He was bored and had his face pressed against the cool glass of the backseat window. He was watching the people lining the sidewalk and, while at a stop light at an intersection with a mom ‘n’ pop shop on the corner, Sean saw it. The spirit was attached to a woman who was probably around his mom’s age at the time. 

She was sweeping away dead, dry leaves from the front of a store. She seemed fine, perfectly content with the glowing orb of bluish-white, like the color of the very center of a flame, embedded in the center of her chest. She didn’t mind the thin vines of the same color that wrapped around her middle, up her shoulders, down her arms and legs, locked around her form. 

Sean didn’t even know how to classify it at the time and he didn’t question it that day. His parents’ car pulled away from the intersection and the woman became a snapshot of the road. She was completely emptied from Sean’s mind by the time he got to his grandparent’s house. Now, he at least recognizes it. He calls it something like a second skin that’s visible to no one but him and others like him, though Sean can’t know that for sure. Ross’ attached ghost is different, though. This spirit is more like the glowing orb inside of his chest, no reedy vines tangling around his skinny body. Instead, it’s more like a light, illuminating outwards like Ryan’s heart is a spotlight. 

Even though he has a definition for it, Sean doesn’t really know what it means to have a ghost attachment. He’d suspect it’s something like his power, except as far as he knows, the person can’t see or speak to the soul that’s made itself a home inside of the host. He can’t say he’s very surprised, though. From the minimal research he’s done, it seems spirits are attracted to odd people, eccentric in nature – or maybe they are eccentric because of the ghosts that have attached themselves. Sean isn’t sure, but it makes sense for him. He can’t talk to the spirit because there’s nothing to talk to. It’s just Ryan Ross with an added glow effect. 

“How long are you in Chicago for?” Max asks. 

Ross shrugs. “As long as I want to be. I’m kind of free lately.” 

“Cool if he sits in on our practice?” Tom asks. “Turns out he knows no one in Chicago except Jon and me.” 

Ross rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling in this easy kind of way that lets them know he’s not taking it to heart. Sean strums a few lines on the guitar in his hands. “Fine by me.” 

Tom points to one of the unoccupied chairs and Ross sinks into it. Tom picks up his own gear and goes to sit between Ross and Max. With him back, they can get more serious – and they do, working on building the skeletons of the songs into something of their own. 

Their practice doesn’t end until well into the night, but by the end of it, they have a few for-sure beginnings of songs that seem like (at least right now) they’ll be used for the new record. Ross stretches as he stands up. He’d kept quiet while they were jamming. He didn’t interject his own opinion, unless he was asked something by Tom or Max, but he didn’t seem bored, either. 

“Hey, how about I take you guys out for brunch tomorrow? My treat.” 

Ross doesn’t even seem like the kind of guy who’s awake for brunch, but Tom’s already nodding. “They serve alcohol, right?” Ross nods and Tom looks back at Sean and Ryan and Max. “You guys in?” 

“Sure,” Sean says. Max declines and Ryan does, too, but Ross doesn’t seem offended. 

“Where are you staying while you’re here?” Sean asks. 

“Oh, Tom recommended a good hotel earlier. Probably there.” They climb up the stairs. Ross is parked outside. “Anyone want a lift home?”

Tom nods and slips into the passenger side of Ross’ car to escape the chilly fall wind. “Ryan’s driving us home,” Sean says. Ross nods before he throws them a wave and joins Tom in the car. He’s all skin and bones. Sean’s pretty sure he won’t last until winter here. 

***

It turns out that Ryan is skipping brunch because he wants to sleep in. Sean borrows his car to drive to the restaurant that Tom texted him the name of. He’s never been there before; he’s terrible at breaking out of his habits and haunts. Ross and Tom are already there and seated at a table. It’s kind of early, but both of them are drinking already. 

“We already ordered,” Tom says once Sean is seated. 

“Beer and chicken tacos,” Ryan says. 

“We ordered you the same,” Tom tells him. 

Sean shrugs. He probably would’ve gotten the same thing if he had been there. “Ryan, I can’t imagine Chicago is better than California this time of year.” 

Ryan definitely looks the part of an out-of-towner. He’s got a thick sweater on, the kind that look reminiscent of the style Jon gets everyone for Christmas, and even though they’re inside, he still looks cold. He nods. “L.A. is definitely my natural habitat.” 

“Why Chicago, then, if you don’t mind my asking? You did know Jon was traveling, right?” 

Ryan looks at the table and nods. “Oh, yeah, he emails me occasionally. I didn’t tell him I was coming here, though.” He looks at Tom then, like he’s silently wondering if Tom is in regular contact with Jon (he is) and whether or not that means he’ll tell Jon that Ryan showed up out of nowhere. “I wanted a change in scenery. Tom tweeted me and I thought, well, I hadn’t seen him in a while. It sounded fun.” 

“Wait,” Sean says, “you came to Chicago because of a tweet?” 

Ryan laughs. “Kind of?” 

“It’s cool,” Tom says. “People have traveled for lesser reasons than that.” He picks up his beer and tips it towards Ryan for a toast. They share a smile. Sean feels like he’s missed something. 

Their food comes and, while they eat, Ryan regales Sean with old tour stories about Tom. It’s nothing surprising or at least nothing he hasn't heard a part of before, but he’s having fun all the same, and Tom has his own loaded memory of stories about Ryan from when he was younger. 

“Brunch is alright with me,” Tom says, patting his stomach and draining the rest of his beer. 

“Yeah,” Ryan says. “It’s not as sophisticated as you’d imagine. It means chicken tacos and light alcohol before you have fish tacos and hard drinks for dinner.” 

“Didn’t you and Jon always eat fish tacos?” Tom asks. “I remember him saying you had a knack for finding the best in each city.” 

Ryan sucks down the rest of his drink. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “We did.”

Sean’s noticed that Tom and Ryan’s common factor is Jon, so their stories involve him quite a bit. He also notes that Tom is fine with talking about Jon (he’s been like that since Sean met him), but whenever he comes up, Ryan looks at the table, fiddles with his beer, smiles and laughs, but none of it reaches his eyes. The last time he saw Ryan Ross, he and Jon were in their own band and a relationship. That’s obviously changed now, though it isn’t Sean’s business, so he tries not to dwell on it. 

Tom doesn’t seem to notice how Ryan is acting in regards to Jon, but it might be because he’s busy ordering himself a Bloody Mary. “Was that an invitation for fish tacos and hard liquor, by the way?” Tom asks once their waitress walks away. “Because I’d be up for that.” 

“Yeah?” A genuine smile is back on Ryan’s face. “I know just the place.” 

Sean apparently isn’t invited out for the fish tacos and hard liquor portion of the night, which is alright by him. As he drives back to his apartment, he wonders if their Ryan is up yet. He wonders if he ate and suddenly feels bad for not bringing anything back with him. 

Ryan is up when Sean gets back, sitting on the couch with a bowl of cereal in his hands. “How was brunch?” Ryan asks. 

“Weird,” Sean says, “but not bad.” 

“Where’s Tom? I thought he’d come back here with you.” 

“He and Ross are going to get wasted and eat fish tacos.” 

Ryan pops his spoon out of his mouth. “That’s weird.” 

Sean sits down on the couch next to Ryan, slipping into the dip in the middle again. His knee knocks against Ryan’s thigh and makes him dribble milk on himself. “Did you bring me something?” Ryan asks. 

“No, you’ll have to make due with eating all our cereal.” 

“So it’s _our_ cereal now? I feel honored.” Ryan waggles his eyebrows at Sean.

He doesn’t say anything because, well, it’s dumb to feel weird over cereal, right? So why does he feel weird? Why does admitting that his home is feeling more and more like Ryan’s home as well make him feel funny? There are probably answers, but Sean’s not going to go looking for them. 

“Did you hear me?” Ryan asks a moment later. Sean arches an eyebrow. 

“Uh?” 

“I said I’d do our dishes, then, since I ate all the cereal.” 

“Oh,” Sean says. “Cool.” 

They settle in after that and watch TV. Even when Ryan’s bowl is empty, he doesn’t move. 

***

Sean dreams again. It’s strange. He dreams of a girl standing over him. She looks like a ghost, but he’s never had dreams about ghosts, doesn’t even know if that’s possible. “Wake up,” she tells him. She sounds angry. Sean doesn’t want to get out of bed even in his dream. Why he’s even in bed in his dream in the first place doesn’t fill him with much confidence that this is going anywhere good. 

Sean sits up, though, and looks at her. She sits next to him on the bed. The light changes around them and he can see her better now. She looks young, old enough to drive but not old enough to buy a beer, with her hair in long braids and square-framed glasses resting on the tip of her nose. Sean wants to reach out and push them up on her face, but he doesn’t.

“You didn’t listen,” she tells him. 

“I didn’t? I got up like you asked.” 

“No, not that. You didn’t listen to them the first time. You’re being stubborn and now something bad happened.” 

“What? What are you talking about? What happened?”

She bites her lip. Sean isn’t sure if ghosts can cry, but she still looks like she’s going to. “Now someone is dead,” she says, “and it’s your fault.” 

“What? I don’t understand. Who died? How?”

“You _have_ to listen to them next time!” she shouts at him. She’s standing up from his bed and the light changes again; the majority of the room goes pitch black, except for where they are. It reminds Sean of a stage during an intense scene of a play, where the spotlights are focused on only the important actors. 

“Please tell me who died!” Sean says. This is a dream, but he can’t remember even here if he talked to Tom before he fell asleep. 

The ghost girl shakes her head. “If you don’t pay attention, more will die.” 

“Pay attention to what?” Sean asks her. He stands up now, too, trying to reason with the dead even though he knows it’s ultimately pointless. 

The girl begins to fade, as does all the darkness and the room in Sean’s dream. When he opens his eyes, he’s awake. His room is bright from the sunlight filtering in through the window. He jerks up as he comes to himself, remembering the dream, unsure whether or not to put his faith in it being real. It takes him a moment to realize that his phone is going off, signaling a text message. 

He scrambles for it, like whoever it is will provide him some insight on the dream he just had. Part of him is still weighted with the thought of the last time someone had heard from Tom and Ross. Sean sighs with relief when the text is from Tom. 

‘ _I forgot how much Ryan can put away for how damn small he is._ ’ 

That’s codeword for ‘Tom is probably hung over and definitely safe,’ so Sean doesn’t text him back yet. He drops his phone and grabs up the notebook on the nightstand next to his bed. He curls his legs in and starts writing out the dream as fast as he can, before the words and pieces leave him. His hand is sloppy from sleep and he hopes to hell that he’ll be able to read his own chicken scratch later if and when he’ll need it again. 

After he writes out the dream, he still doesn’t leave the bed or text Tom. He’s never dreamt in his life and suddenly he’s dreaming conversations with ghosts? He’s not sure how to take what she said. Is it real? Can they suddenly slip into Sean’s mind when he’s at rest? Are his own fears creating scenarios that aren’t real but feel remarkably so? 

Sean re-reads the words he just wrote. The side of his palm is stained with ink. If he’s quiet, he can hear Ryan puttering around, and he can smell pancakes (because those are one of the only things Ryan can make without fucking it up). It’s comforting. It makes Sean calm down enough that he can let the dream settle and deal with what was actually said. 

' _Have you talked to Max?_ ' Sean texts to Tom. 

He doesn’t expect Max to be dead. Max is smarter than the whole lot of them and, if anyone is going to keep himself safe, it’s Max, but he figures if the ghosts are going to tell him blatantly that a person died, it must be someone Sean knows. He still waits for Tom’s reply with his breath caught up in his throat. When his phone vibrates, he almost drops it. 

' _Yeah, I’m sleeping off the booze on his couch, but he keeps fucking with me. I should’ve came to your place._ '

Okay, so Sean’s band is safe and no one from his circle of friends has called him to tell him of anyone dying. He can relax for a while, at least. He tugs on jeans and then heads out to meet up with Ryan and steal his pancakes. 

Sean doesn’t tell Ryan about the dream. Maybe he’d tell Tom or Max, but Ryan…he just doesn’t want him to worry. Ryan starts reading the newspaper while he eats. Sean is already done and cleaning up, but when he picks up his plate, something on the front page of the paper catches his eye. 

“Wait,” Sean says. He stops Ryan from turning the paper over. “What’s that picture on the front there?” 

Ryan takes a bite of his syrup-heavy pancake and turns the paper so that Sean can read the front page’s headline. The article is about a murder of a girl who was strangled in a park. Underneath the article is a picture of the victim. Sean looks at her for a full minute before the realization kicks in. “Fuck,” Sean says. 

“Pretty brutal, right? Makes me kind of scared to go out at night.” When Sean doesn’t say anything, Ryan looks at him. “You alright?”

“This girl,” Sean taps the picture in question. “She came to me last night.” 

“What? Like, as a ghost?” 

“Yeah,” Sean sits down because his knees feel all wobbly, “She told me that someone had died…she said it was my fault. God, she was trying to tell me she died! She died because of something I did or didn’t do.” 

“Are you sure it was her? Maybe it just looks like her.” 

“It was her and that’s why she was upset. I guess…I was supposed to save her?” 

“That doesn’t make sense,” Ryan says. “How could you have saved her? You didn’t even know her.” 

Sean cradles his head in his hands. He could really go for a drink right about now. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything they say anymore!” Sean slams his hand down against the table out of frustration. Ryan doesn’t say anything. He carefully brings the paper back to him and scans the page again. 

“It says she was found early yesterday morning.” 

“She must not have wanted to confront me directly,” Sean says. His hand stings and his chest is tight. He doesn’t know how he could’ve known that this girl was going to be murdered, let alone how he could have stopped it, but it happened and she told him it was his fault. “So she came when I was sleeping.” 

“They can do that?” 

“She can. The rest probably can, too.” 

Ryan sets the newspaper aside and then bites his lip. “Hey, don’t dwell on this. There’s no way you could’ve known…you’re not a superhero, Sean.” 

What Ryan is saying is essentially true. Sean couldn’t have known where this girl was until it was too late, until she had a way to communicate with him. It doesn’t make Sean feel any better. He slips away from the table. Ryan’s eyes are on him the entire time. He goes to the fridge and digs through the drawer at the bottom; it’s where the vegetables should be kept, but Sean hasn’t had time to buy any time-sensitive food, so instead, he keeps a bottle of cheap whiskey in there. Ryan is still watching him when he takes it to his room. He closes his door but not all the way; he doesn’t call it an invitation, exactly, but if Ryan wants to come and sit with him in his bedroom, then Sean won’t say ‘no.’ 

He leafs through the notebook where he’d written the dream he just had. A few pages back is an equally-as-messy note about his first night off tour, getting drunk and having the ghosts visit him then. That spirit also told him they needed him for something but left before telling him what. What’s happening now…if people are dying and Sean is somehow involved, it changes the passive sort of way he’s always thought about the ghosts. Now it feels like a monumental thing that goes far beyond visiting distant family members and carrying a ghost inside of you. 

He spends all day avoiding his phone, and drinking his bottle, and writing in his notebook. Ryan never comes inside to check on him, but Sean thinks at certain points that he can feel his presence just outside the barely-opened door. In these moments, Sean keeps his head down and his hand still, but he’s finding as the night drags on that he wants Ryan to come inside. In his head, he’s saying ‘ _please, please, please,_ ’ but as long as he doesn’t say it out loud, it never becomes real and the presence will disappear and Sean will keep drinking and writing. 

***

Ryan is there the next morning, though. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed. Sean peers at him from under the thick cocoon of his comforter. He’s so out of himself that he almost tugs at Ryan’s wrist and pulls him under because, even though he’s in his cocoon, he’s cold without the feel of someone’s knees tucking into the space where Sean’s legs bend. 

Ryan bends and then lifts the empty bottle into the air. “Long night?”

“Sorry,” Sean says. He folds the blanket down and sits himself up. He doesn’t exactly feel hung over, but he doesn’t feel great, either. 

Ryan bends again and then he has Sean’s notebook in his hands. “You wrote a lot.”

“It’s probably all shit,” Sean says, but he takes the book when Ryan offers it. 

Ryan looks like he has something to say, but if he does, he doesn't voice it. Sean scratches a hand through his hair and abandons his notebook. “I’m going to take a shower,” Sean says. Ryan nods and stands, slipping out to the living room, the concern never leaving his eyes.

After his shower, Sean feels a fuck of a lot better. When he comes out of the bathroom, Ryan isn’t in the apartment. Sean might think he’d scared him away with his miniature breakdown last night if not for the movement he catches out on the balcony. Through the glass door, Sean can see Ryan leaning over the railing, silver smoke curling up around his head. Sean tosses the towel hanging over his head into the hamper and grabs a hoodie that’s hanging limp off the arm of the couch before sliding out the door to join him. 

Ryan looks back when Sean comes out to the balcony. “Hey,” Ryan says, “you shouldn’t be out here if you just got out of the shower. It’s too fucking cold.” 

Yeah, it’s cold, but Sean is mostly dry. He isn’t worried about it. “I’ll live.” 

Another drag off his cigarette and Ryan raises an eyebrow at Sean. “Are you okay?” 

Sean nods. “I think so. I’m confused as all fuck, but I’m alright.” 

Ryan doesn’t say anything, but he hums and flicks the thick ashes off the end of his cigarette. The sun is hanging low and the sky is a mix of gold and grey. Winter is coming at them fast; Sean really wouldn’t be surprised if it started snowing right now. 

“You ever feel like you’re on the outside of life?” Sean asks, mimicking Ryan’s position, elbows braced against the metal railing. He glances over at Ryan. “Like…even though I’m here and I’m surrounded by people and I’m connecting, I don’t really feel a part of it.” Sean laughs and rubs the butt of his palms against his eyes. He’s slept a lot, but he still feels tired. 

Ryan is watching him now. His eyes are boring into Sean’s form. Sean doesn’t want to move an inch, doesn’t even want to blink or breathe because he’s afraid that, if he does, Ryan will stop looking at him. “Am I even making sense?” Sean asks. Ryan still hasn’t said anything. Sean acknowledges that he’s capable of getting so caught up in his head and with the conversations no one else can hear that, when he’s talking to someone who’s alive and here, he just…unravels.

“No, I understand what you mean. I’ve really been boning up on my Sean-to-English dictionary lately.” 

It’s supposed to be a joke, but neither of them laughs. Sean reaches out and picks up Ryan’s pack of smokes, steals one. He shouldn’t – it’s awful for his voice, especially if they plan on recording soon – but wants it, just something to take his mind off the conversation. 

“Maybe I’ve been spending too much time with the dead. I’m not relating to the living anymore.” It’s something he had worried about from the beginning, how to tread the line between both worlds. Ignoring either world was never really an option because the ghosts never leave and this is Sean’s _life_ \-- and if he’s learned one thing from the spirits he converses with, it’s not to waste it. “I’m not really a normal person,” Sean says, “and I’m not really anything else.”

“You’re an artist,” Ryan tells him, but there’s a hint of teasing to his voice. He’s really no good at serious conversation. It makes him uncomfortable. If Sean has learned anything about Ryan, it’s that he’ll try to inject some humor to bear part of the weight. “You’re just like us.” 

Sean took the cigarette but he isn’t even smoking it. It’s mostly burning down in his fingertips. “But no one else can do what I do.”

“So you’re quirky. Tom has no social cues, I’m barely a functioning adult, and Max…well, Max might actually be perfectly normal. The point is that we’re all weird.” 

“But we’re not all haunted.” 

The chilly wind picks up and rushes the little pocket of space that Sean and Ryan inhabit out here on the balcony. Ryan doesn’t say anything and, eventually, Sean takes a drag off the cigarette before forfeiting it to Ryan. He smiles and then smokes what little is left of the rest. It’s getting colder as the sun sinks behind the buildings. 

“Maybe you just need someone to keep you grounded,” Ryan says. His gaze lingers over Sean. “You need someone to remind you that you’re human.” 

Sean smiles. “Maybe.” 

Ryan shivers from the cold. It’s barely noticeable, but he slides closer to Sean, their hips brushing for a second, warmth blossoming in the spot. Sean wants to feel that warmth all over, the fading heat still feeling like the hint of an opportunity. 

Later, once the sun has gone down and Sean feels normal again, he and Ryan sit in the living room. Sean reads the songs he wrote last night. Most of it is dark, fraught with fear, and Sean thinks maybe he’s a little too tender to reread them just yet. He eventually stumbles on one that he likes, one that feels good, feels like Empires. He’s never been shy about showing his work, but this song feels oddly personal in more ways than just ghosts fucking with his head. 

“Tell me what you think of this,” Sean says, handing the notebook over. 

“Potential song?”

Sean shrugs. “Something like that.” 

Ryan reads it and Sean tries not to watch his face too hard. This song is heavy and real and, if Ryan doesn’t like it, it’d feel like he doesn’t like a piece of Sean. He alternates at picking at the carpet underneath him and glancing under his still-damp bangs at Ryan’s face. He doesn’t look like anything good or bad, so Sean waits until he’s set the notebook in his lap before he starts reading into things. 

“That’s heavy, man,” Ryan says. 

“Do you like it?” Sean flinches at the edge of desperation in his voice, just enough creeping in to bother him. He just needs Ryan to like it. 

“Yeah, I do. I think we should show the others.” 

He hands Sean back the book. Sean tries to imagine singing the cleaned-up version, sharing a piece of him with everyone. He’s almost tempted to keep it, just let it live between he and Ryan like a shared secret, an understanding. The urge to create wins out in the end, though, and he knows he’ll email it to Max and Tom. 

***

They decide to record that song, along with a few others, right away, just to get back into the swing of things. Max has them on this casual kick where messy is good, better even than the tighter recordings they had in the past. Ross isn’t at the studio with Tom, which kind of surprises Sean. According to Max, they’ve mostly been out every night this week. 

No one asks Sean what the song is about. He hopes they know him well enough to just absorb his intentions through musical osmosis because he doesn’t feel like talking about it, doesn’t even know if he could if it was asked of him. He’s still working out what it means to him, how big of a slice of himself he’s offering up to their audience. 

They record the song in one take. It’s better to sing about it than talk about it, easier for Sean to speak through the music than to sit down and discuss it. When Max plays it back for them, it feels messy and loud but right in a really good way. Sean likes that kind of chaos. It reminds him of the feeling in his chest the night he wrote the song, reminds him of the mess in his mind that had to escape through ink. 

After getting the song out, after it becomes _real_ , Sean feels a lot better. He feels even more like himself, more than ever before. Music is something he can completely bury himself in without ever wanting to come up for a breath. He doesn’t tell Max or Tom about the dream of the girl who was murdered and he doesn’t think Ryan has said anything, either, so here, at least, he can blow off the thoughts that still weighs him down. 

“You keep checking your phone,” Max says to Tom after they’ve recorded their songs for the night. “You got a hot date?” 

Tom gives him a shit-eating grin and tucks his phone away. “Ryan messaged me to say he’s coming to get me.” 

“So it is a date?” Max asks. Mostly, they’re just giving Tom a hard time. 

Tom shrugs. “Yeah, kinda.” 

“Wait, you’re serious?” Sean asks. 

Tom’s gaze passes around the three of them. “Yeah, it’s a date. No big deal.” 

“I thought he was dating Jon?” Ryan asks. 

“They broke up a while back.” 

“You’re going to go on a date with your ex-boyfriend’s ex-boyfriend?” 

Tom turns to Ryan. “Yes, Mom, and I may even let him kiss me goodnight. But don’t worry, he promises to have me home by midnight so you and Dad – ” Tom’s eyes cut to Sean now “– don’t have to wait up.” 

Sean smiles. “Have fun.” 

“Yeah,” Max says. “I think you’re overestimating how much we care about this.” 

“Don’t go to third base on the first date,” Ryan says. “Or do, it’s your life.” 

Tom waves them off, but he’s smiling again. 

“You guys wanna go out, too?” Ryan asks. He stretches and stands from behind his kit. “Go unwind?” 

He says ‘you guys’ like he means both of them, but Max doesn’t drink, so Sean knows he mostly means Sean with Max playing companion to them. “Could be fun,” Sean says, looking at Max. “What do you think?” 

“If you guys get shitfaced, I’m stealing your fucking car.” 

It’s a risk they’re willing to take, so they throw on their coats. By the time they trudge upstairs, Ross is parked outside the house waiting for Tom. Ross waves from inside the car but doesn’t get out. Tom shouts his goodbyes as he slips into Ross’ rental car. 

Ryan, Max, and Sean pile into Ryan’s car. They let Ryan pick the bar. It’s a place neither Max nor Sean have ever been to, but Ryan likes it and says they have good beer, so Sean is willing. Inside, it feels like a million places Sean’s been to or played at before, but Ryan is true to his word and the beer is better than usual. There’s a TV on near the bar, but the sound is too low for Sean to hear what it says. It’s something about a breaking news report. There’s no way he’d be able to hear the report even if he asked the bartender to turn it up for him. He doesn’t even know why he’s paying attention to the TV instead of his friends – maybe curiosity or the sick dread in his stomach. The screen switches from a reporter talking soundlessly to a screen with three little square pictures of three people. The screen is topped with the word: **Missing**. 

Sean forces himself to look at the three people: two guys and a girl. He wracks his brain trying to remember if he’d seen their spirit forms around anywhere. He hasn’t, but what’s scarier than that is the thought that, maybe soon, he will.

Ryan nudges him in the side and draws Sean’s attention back to him and Max. Sean catches him glance at the screen just as the story fades away. His eyebrows pull together; it’s like he can see every thought in Sean’s head. Ryan touches Sean’s hand. “Lemme buy you something stronger.” 

Drinking isn’t always the answer, but it sure as fuck helps. Sean doesn’t plan on getting shitfaced, but he lets Ryan get him something stronger than the beer in his hand. They move on and play darts and then pool, Max winning both just barely. By the time the bar closes up for the night and they hit the cold open night air, Sean feels good again. In fact, he feels better than good – he feels almost perfect with the chill of Chicago weather in his lungs and Ryan’s hand pressing against his back in a sorry attempt at leading Sean to the car. 

They’re not completely trashed, just the annoying kind of drunk where you make your sober friends hate you for the night and you end up eating really shitty food on your kitchen floor and then maybe sleeping it off there while you’re at it. Max makes good on his word to steal Ryan’s car for the night, even if that just means he’s going to park it in his driveway and make Ryan and Sean come back for it tomorrow. 

Sean and Ryan stumble into Sean’s apartment, a familiar feeling. Ryan starts shedding his shoes and coat by the door and Sean does the same. His head barely spins. He wants to sit but doesn’t want to go to bed. He and Ryan look at the couch at the same time, the sad, saggy couch, and Ryan grins so that Sean can see all his teeth. He doesn’t know why, but it feels like a race, suddenly – to the victor goes the couch! They stumble over each other, sliding around in socks; Ryan is tiny and quick, so he makes it to the couch first, but Sean doesn’t stop and topples onto the couch, too, falling on top of Ryan. 

“Asshole,” Ryan says, his face muffled by Sean’s shoulder. He pushes at Sean’s chest. “I won. Go away.” 

“No,” Sean says, laughing as he grabs for one of Ryan’s wrists, tugging it up over his head and pressing his hand against the arm of the chair. “Do you really want me to go?” Sean asks almost as an afterthought once he’s got both of Ryan’s wrists in his hands, tugged up over Ryan’s head. 

Ryan snorts. “No.” He kicks at Sean’s thighs, trying to dislodge him and push him off the couch. It’s hard to say who’s stronger. Sean is bigger, longer; Ryan might be in better shape. Ryan hooks a leg over the back of Sean’s and makes like he’s going to roll them both off the couch, but Sean presses him down into the sinking fabric of the couch. 

It takes him way, way too long to realize their position. He’s lying stretched out on the couch between Ryan’s spread legs, one of which is still hooked up over Sean’s. Sean has Ryan spread long, too, but he’s still smaller and has more room. Their faces are closer than Sean remembers; he can feel his own chest moving as Ryan breathes sharply in the tiny space. They smell like sweat and sharp, tangy alcohol and then Sean realizes that he’s been staring at Ryan for way too long. Ryan’s wrists twitch in Sean’s hands. He’s gone lax enough that Ryan could pull away if he wanted to, but he doesn’t do it. It stops feeling like a game. 

Ryan’s lips are parted, like he’s going to say something, and Sean waits for it. Time drips by agonizingly slow. He should move, should go to bed. This is weird, even for him. He’s waiting for Ryan to tell him to move his fucking ass, but Ryan’s not saying anything. He’s just looking up at Sean with widened eyes. 

Sean wishes he had drank more at the bar. He wishes he had gotten completely shitfaced so that he could at least blame these feelings on something other than his own semi-sober brain, but he’s aware enough to know what he’s doing, to recognize the warmth spreading between where their bodies meet, to be aware of Ryan’s heel pressing in against the back of Sean’s thigh. 

So he can’t blame anything other than himself when he leans down into the little inches that separate Ryan’s mouth from Sean’s. He presses his mouth to Ryan’s, his hands still holding down Ryan’s arms. It’s the softest, kindest kiss he’s ever given out. Ryan sucks in a sharp breath before it happens and doesn’t even push away like Sean thinks might happen. He’s dizzy again, but it’s less with alcohol and more with ‘why the fuck is he letting me do this?’ He can’t even recognize and own up to the feelings in his own head, to comprehend that Ryan might have those feelings, too. 

That safe, little kiss is like the last second before a floodgate opens. Ryan let Sean kiss him and then he’s pulling away but barely so that he can still smell the drinks on Ryan’s breath. He wants to ask if it’s okay to do it again but instead releases Ryan’s hands and then touches Ryan’s face. There’s a lot of Ryan to cover here; Sean doesn’t know where to start. He just…he can’t. His fingers twine in Ryan’s hair and then he tips Ryan’s head back against the couch and leans down with more aggression, kisses him again. The rush comes. 

The kissing isn’t careful or one-sided anymore. It’s frenzied, heated. Ryan bites Sean’s goddamn lip after a second and Sean has never had that happen to him, but now it’s all he wants for the rest of his fucking life. His hands are still in Ryan’s hair and Ryan’s now-freed hands are clutching at Sean’s shoulders, fingers digging into the thin fabric of Sean’s v-neck. 

Ryan’s mouth is damp and perfect. He tastes like everything Sean imagined he would if Sean ever admitted to imagining it at all. Their tongues meet; it’s all too much. Sean doesn’t know what to think or do because it’s _Ryan_. He’s kissing Ryan. Sean can feel Ryan shifting underneath him, crushed by Sean’s weight bearing down. He doesn’t want to break the kiss to move or talk or breathe. He wants this hurried, sloppy, chaotic mess of a kiss to last forever. 

It can’t last, though, and it doesn’t. Ryan makes this noise that sounds similar to one he makes whenever he’s moving gear. It’s weird of Sean to notice, but he does. Their lives, friendship, profession, _everything_ slams back into him in a jagged second. He breaks the kiss then, pulling away like Ryan’s mouth is burning him – and it _is_ , but not in a bad way, in a way where Sean wants to be engulfed. He shouldn’t feel that and he shouldn’t know what Ryan tastes like and he shouldn’t fucking be hard right now. 

Maybe Ryan can see the wild, panicked look emerging in Sean’s eyes. He bites his lip, looking wrecked, like fucking sex underneath of Sean, but he can’t do a goddamn thing about it. “Sean?” Ryan starts, voice thick with drink and…Sean doesn’t want to know what else; he’ll never leave if he puts a name to it. 

Sean shakes his head. “I’m drunk,” he says, laughing pathetically fake. He’s sure Ryan can feel his hard-on pressing against his thigh. “I’m fucking drunk. I’m going to bed.” Even though Sean’s entire body is screaming at him not to go, he raises up off the couch, the cold air attacking him, feeling more like loneliness than anything else. He leaves Ryan spread long on the couch, cheeks as red as his mouth. If Sean closes his eyes, he can still feel the bite on his bottom lip. 

“Sean,” Ryan says again. Sean has turned by now, his back to Ryan because, the longer he looks, the more he’ll inch back to the couch and lie there until he gives up. Whatever Ryan was going to say, he never finishes it. Sean walks to his bedroom without even saying goodnight. 

***

Sean barely sleeps that night for a completely different reason than the last night he had this much trouble falling asleep. He’s painfully aware of Ryan’s presence in the apartment. He strips out of his shirt and pants because he swears he can smell Ryan’s cologne on them. He goes to sleep with his dick still hard because he doesn’t trust himself to jerk off and not think of…shit, he just shouldn’t think at all. He sleeps with a stomachache that he wants to attribute to the alcohol, but he knows it isn’t the same. He may have just messed up the safest place in his life. 

He wakes up to someone tugging the blanket off his face. His heart leaps to his throat, thinking that Ryan came to make his own move, to try again, wild, crazy, thoughts that don’t make sense. When he rolls over, much faster and much more panicked than he should be, he isn’t greeted by Ryan, but by Tom. He sighs and flops back against the bed, heart still beating too fast. 

“Good morning, sweetheart.” 

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” Sean groans. 

“Why? Afraid the Missus will find out?” 

Tom doesn’t mean to be an asshole, but the joke still feels like a punch to his gut. “What do you want?” Sean asks. 

“I came to tell you about my disastrous first date.” 

Sean’s reconsidering his whole ‘Tom doesn’t mean to be an asshole’ stance. “Let me go piss before you get into a whole thing or whatever,” Sean tells him, crawling out of bed. He’s halfway to the door before he realizes he’ll run into Ryan out there. It’s too late to turn back without Tom getting suspicious, so Sean sucks it up and trudges out into the living room. 

It’s empty, no trace of Ryan, not even the smell of a breakfast that has long since been eaten. Sean feels sick again and goes to the bathroom to piss and possibly make himself throw up while he’s at it. He doesn’t end up puking, but he does splash water on his face and then head back to his bedroom where Tom is rifling in the little piles of miscellaneous crap in Sean’s room. 

“Was Ryan here when you got here?” Sean asks. 

“Nope,” Tom says, going back to Sean’s bed, curling up at the foot of it like he’s a dog or some shit. “Haven’t seen him today.” 

The weight settles in Sean’s stomach. He fucked up. He fucked up and kissed Ryan and now Ryan left and he probably won’t be coming back and it will ruin the fucking band because Sean couldn’t stop himself. He thinks about telling Tom, but…no, that isn’t fair. Tom’s already been on the losing end of band relations and Sean won’t put him in a situation where he has to choose a side. 

“So, about your date?” 

Tom rolls his eyes. “Yeah. I kind of know why Ryan came to Chicago now.” 

“And?” 

“He wanted to feel close to Jon, which makes no fucking sense because Jon isn’t even here!”

“Jon was the only reason for him to ever come to Chicago, though. The two were probably one and the same in his mind. Did he tell you that?” 

“No.” Tom sits himself up now, straightening his legs out. “It was going okay at first. He found this nightclub that he wanted to go to. We never even had fish tacos, but I swear he put away every drink on the menu. Anyway, he gave me his phone and told me not to let him tweet or text anyone, and then after he was good and drunk, he starts angling for his phone back. I asked him what for and he tells me he wants to text Jon or tweet his feelings or some shit. I didn’t let him have it and he spent a good hour calling me an asshole while I ate my greasy bar enchilada.” 

Normally, Sean would laugh – he’d laugh a _lot_ – but he can’t bring himself to do much more than snort at Tom. “Besides that, was it fun?” 

Tom shrugs. “Yeah, he apologized on the way to his hotel.” Sean raises an eyebrow and Tom makes a face. “Sean, I’m an asshole, but I didn’t sleep with him, shit. I think he’ll probably apologize when he wakes up, too.” 

“Anyway,” Tom says before he pats Sean's knee, “get your ass up. I brought my guitar; I wanna test some stuff out on you.” 

Sean doesn't fight it. He goes to sit with Tom in his living room and lets Tom play for him. It’s good – it always is with Tom – and he enjoys watching him. Something about how into it Tom is, how he zones in on one thing and never lets go, revitalizes Sean in a way that drives him forward. He knows that all of them feed off each other, but Sean is especially inspired by how Tom loses himself. Sean gets lost to the ghosts, Tom gets lost in the music. 

Since Tom is in the apartment and they’re still alone, Sean debates telling him about all the weird shit with the ghosts and the dead girl. He almost does, but he feels like if he can just keep it down to him and Ryan, then it’s not real, it’s not something that Sean needs to worry about. Even though it could be serious – and if it is, then Tom very well deserves to know – Sean can’t muster the courage. 

Tom’s phone starts buzzing across Sean’s coffee table an hour and a half into his visit. Tom glances at it occasionally with his typical fondly irritated look on his face. 

“Why don’t you just text whoever that is back?” Sean asks. 

“It’s Ryan,” Tom says. Sean raises an eyebrow and Tom waves a hand at him. “Not our Ryan.” He picks up his phone but sets it back down again after confirming the identity. “I'm letting him worry a little.”

“How nice of you.” 

“Payback is never a pretty thing, Sean,” Tom says, though he’s clearly amused. Sean shakes his head. Despite his disastrous date, Sean can tell that Tom is enjoying his time with Ross. 

Finally, Tom gives in and texts Ross back, reminding Sean too much of a giddy teenager with a crush – not that Sean can call him on shit when he still remembers the way Ryan tasted last night. He shakes the thoughts from his head before they take him over, before his stomach starts hurting. Sean glances at the balcony. The sun is sinking low in the sky, the daylight becoming ever shorter with winter closing in on them. Ryan is usually back at the apartment by now. His absence is just a bitter reminder of how Sean fucked up, how Ryan isn’t going to come back. 

“Well,” Tom says, starting to pack his guitar up. “I’m heading out.”

“Meeting Ross?” Sean asks. 

Tom doesn’t answer, but the small smile that winds across his face is answer enough. “I’ll text you later with the details.” 

“Don’t feel obligated to do that,” Sean calls out as Tom slips through the front door. 

After Tom is gone, the apartment feels too empty, even though Sean is more than used to living on his own and spending time by himself. He thinks about writing, his fingers and mind itching to dissect what happened last night, twist it into his own words set to music. It’s what he does: if there’s a problem, something he’s struggling with, he writes it out and turns it into something else. Somehow, it helps to just put it out there, remixed for him. He can’t do that now, though. He won’t let himself write about Ryan like he’s something Sean doesn’t understand. 

Instead of writing, he lies on the couch and tries to watch movies on basic cable, trying to ignore the pulsing worry in his gut of 'What if Ryan doesn’t just want out of the apartment? What if he wants out of the _band_?’ He tries to convince himself that it wasn’t that serious, just a stupid drunken kiss. He considers everyone he’s ever kissed at the peak of drunkenness. They never felt half as good as last night did. 

Sometime later, once night has begun to fall over the city, Sean hears the doorknob rattle. He’s expecting Tom and steels himself to listen to him bitch about how Ross fucked up another date, but instead of Tom, it’s Ryan's gaze he’s meeting in the doorway. 

“Oh, hey,” Ryan says easily. He slips inside and takes his shoes off near the door. 

“Hey...” Sean says. He's surprised, really fucking surprised, that Ryan doesn’t look pissed or nearly as miserable about what happened as Sean feels. 

“Are you alright?” Ryan asks, probably sensing the clipped tone in Sean’s voice. 

Sean props himself up on his elbows on the couch. “I...yeah, no, I’m fine, man. I thought...I don’t know. I thought you were spending the night at Nick’s or something.”

Ryan shrugs, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the back of one of Sean’s dining chairs. “I was hanging with him. He had a business dinner or something and offered to take me along. I mean, do you want some alone time? I can always – ” Ryan picks up his jacket and motions towards the door. 

“No, no, stay. I didn’t mean that I wanted you to go or anything – ” It’s stupid how after dreaming up a million scenarios about how Ryan would never come back, would never even speak to him again, Sean hadn't planned for what would happen if Ryan did come back, and now he’s floundering. He can barely even look at Ryan and he hates himself for it. 

Ryan seems to be fine, though. He crosses to the couch, perching on the arm next to Sean’s feet instead of pushing Sean’s legs aside and finding himself a spot like he might have done before. 

“Here,” Sean says, turning so that he’s sitting straight ahead. There’s a good distance between his end of the couch and Ryan’s. 

Ryan looks at the opened space and sinks into it. Sean didn’t think it was possible to miss the stupid dip in the center of the couch that made their bodies meet, but God, he does. He really does. An uncomfortable silence settles between them, not at all the companionable kind he’s used to. He’s straining for something to say. He almost settles on how Tom is seeing Ross again tonight, but even that feels weird. 

“Max sent me a text to tell me that Tom has cooked up some cool shit,” Ryan says, finally breaking the silence. Okay, cool, the band. Sean can definitely talk about the band. 

“Yeah, he came over to show me some of it. It’s good. We’re probably going to use some of it.” 

Ryan nods, drumming his fingers against his jean-covered thighs. Sean can barely sit here, can barely watch him without remembering last night. Everything is triggering his senses. His body remembers what it was like to have Ryan pinned under him, to feel warm and rough all at once. Sean scratches a hand through his hair harder than necessary. He needs to _stop_. He can’t do this, can’t think like this. 

Sean pushes up from the couch without a real direction beyond ‘get the fuck away from him before you fuck up _again_ ’ and ends up just standing there. He can feel Ryan’s eyes on him and the air grows heavier between them. 

“Sean,” Ryan says, his tone perfectly calm. Sean panics. He’s sure Ryan is about to launch into a discussion about what last night means. Sean can't do it; even if it needs to happen, he can’t label it or talk about it. He can’t even admit to it. “ _Blade_ is on. Sit down and watch it.” 

Damn Ryan for knowing Sean's favorite movies and damn him for being so casual when Sean is freaking out. Sean sits back down because, well, why the fuck not? His only other option is running to his bedroom and hiding in there until Ryan falls asleep. Somehow, that feels even worse than sitting out here with him. 

They get through the night without talking about it, but Sean can feel a wall, a distance that right now is just a tiny pinhole but, if it isn't plugged up, will only continue to grow, expanding outwards and eating away at everything until there is nothing left. Sean doesn’t want that, but he doesn’t know how to fix it, either. 

***

It’s obvious the next morning, as Sean and Ryan pack up their shit to go to the studio, which direction they’re going to take with this whole kissing thing. They’re going to pretend it never happened – at least, Sean thinks that’s what they’re doing. Ryan is acting normal and Sean thinks he is, too, even if he feels like a jittery mess. He can pretend it never happened. That’s what he’s good at. 

Again, Sean can pour out all the excess feelings into singing. He surrenders to the sound booth, giving up all he has and pushing it into the art he’s devoted his life to making. He doesn’t know how the emotions will change or how they’ll sound until it’s all done, but all he ever wants is for the feeling to resonate with someone, for someone to listen, for a chord to be struck, for a connection to be made. 

He’s keenly aware of Ryan out in the studio at his drums, aware that he’s watching and listening. Sean sometimes stutters over a line because he’s busy wondering if Ryan can read him like a book. Some days, like today, Sean gives all of himself to the creation, and when he slips from the booth and downs two bottles of water, he feels like a clean slate. 

He listens to Max and Tom record their parts. Sometimes, they play all at once and, sometimes, they break it into sections. They don’t really have a structure this time, but Sean likes what they’re doing, likes the release. It won’t last, because even looking at Ryan is drumming up something in his chest, but for now, being empty is good. 

After practice, Ross shows up to collect Tom. He invites them all out to this place that is clearly a bar he picked up from Jon. Sean is feeling weirdly disconnected with everyone, but it’d be weird if he said ‘no,’ seeing as how everyone else said ‘yes,’ so they split two cars. It’s already weird that Sean has decided to ride with Tom and Ross instead of Max and Ryan.

Sean doesn’t allow himself to get drunk like the night he kissed Ryan. He orders a water and a beer and then alternates between listening to Ross and Tom argue about some story from when he tagged along on their tour and playing pool with Max. He doesn’t know where Ryan is; he isn’t keeping track. He just knows that he’s not where Sean is, which is probably better in the long run. 

He manages to avoid Ryan for at least two hours before he goes back to the bar to get another beer and catches sight of Ryan standing off to the side near Tom. He sees Sean – he’s looking right at him. At first, his face is blank, but then, slowly, he smiles. He doesn’t look all that genuine, but Sean tries to give it back to him. He’s not sure what his smile looks like in return. 

He thinks Ryan will approach him now, slide up to him and, then, well, Sean doesn’t know what happens. He glances towards Ryan, who’s drinking deep from his beer, eyes slated in Sean’s direction. It feels like a goddamn walking temptation. He forces his gaze away, staring down at the glossy, wooden bar under his palms and waits for that second beer. In the back of his mind, he wonders what number drink Ryan is on. 

Ryan never does approach him. Sean slinks away from the bar with his beer and glues himself to Max’s side. It’s shitty and obvious that he’s keeping his distance, but Ryan isn’t trying to close in on him, either. Occasionally, though, Sean can feel eyes on him. He knows that it’s Ryan watching him from a safe distance. Sean isn’t even brave enough to do that. 

Sean notices that, when a bar is getting ready to close, the lights dim down to almost nothing. Tom says it’s so lonely people who are too shy in the light to make a move can snatch up someone to go home with, but Tom says a lot of shit. In the almost-darkness of this bar, though, he can clearly see Tom whispering something to Ross. Max is paying for his last cranberry juice. He’s got Ryan's wallet in his hand, so he’s probably paying for Ryan’s shit, too. Speaking of Ryan, though, Sean doesn’t know where he is. He scans the dark of the bar for him until he feels a hand brush his arm. 

Sean startles and hears a throaty laugh. “Did I scare you?” Ryan asks from behind Sean. “That’s impossible. Nothing scares you.” 

Sean turns around so that he’s facing Ryan. “That’s not true. A lot of things scare me.” Just nothing he hopes Ryan will notice. 

Ryan wiggles his fingers at Sean. “Like…” He leans in close, like he wants to whisper in Sean’s ear – except Sean isn’t leaning down, so it’s more like Ryan is whispering into Sean’s v-neck. “Like ghosts?” 

“Something else has been scaring me lately.” Sean doesn’t know why he's saying this. He doesn’t want to talk about it and he isn’t drunk enough to have a reason for a loose tongue, but maybe Ryan is drunk enough to not remember. 

Ryan’s brows furrow together. “What is it?” Now Sean knows he’s drunk, because he’s all over the place. He feels Ryan’s hand brush against his own and sucks in a quick breath. “What are you scared of?” 

“Ryan – ”

“No,” Ryan says. “Don’t be afraid of me.” He sounds sad, and Sean's chest hurts.

“I didn't mean that,” Sean says, though he kind of did. His heart is beating faster now than it ever did within the presence of a spirit. 

Ryan’s hand finds Sean’s. He’s holding Sean’s hand in the middle of a dark bar. Ryan’s hand is rough from playing. His fingertips scratch at Sean’s palm, but his hand is also warm and solid. Sean feels more anchored now than he has in the last few days. Ryan’s thumb sweeps against the back of Sean’s hand. It’s not particularly intimate, but it reminds Sean of what they aren’t supposed to be doing. He isn’t supposed to be doing this. 

“Hey,” Sean says. He slides his hand from Ryan’s. “No. Anyone could see.” That’s not even really the problem. Sean’s mouth is moving faster than his brain. 

“Does that mean you’d hold my hand somewhere where no one could see?” Ryan asks, one eyebrow raised in Sean’s direction. 

“The bar is closing,” Sean says instead of giving a real answer. “Let’s go find Max.” He doesn’t even look back to see if Ryan is following him, but he knows that he is. He can feel Ryan’s gaze burning a hole in the center of his back.

They find Max at the bar and, when they get outside, Sean grabs Max by the shoulder. “Hey, I’m not drunk. I’m good to drive.”

Max looks skeptical, but they both know that Sean wouldn’t lie about something like that. He isn’t drunk, barely running on a buzz at all. He drank more water than beer tonight. Max gets Ryan in the backseat. He’s not too smashed, either, but he’s in no condition to drive. 

He drops Max off and then it’s just he and Ryan in the car on the way back to his apartment. Ryan is crammed up by the door, his forehead against the cool glass of the backseat window. 

“Don’t throw up in your own car, dude,” Sean says. “You’ll hate yourself in the morning.” 

Ryan mumbles an unintelligible response and flips Sean off. That feels more like how they used to be before this weird tension found its way into their friendship. Sean could almost feel better about things if he didn’t remember the hand-holding at the bar. 

The cool night air seems to have sobered Ryan up somewhat. He’s able to walk without stumbling and doesn’t need Sean’s help in getting up to the apartment. Once they’re inside, he doesn’t even kick off his shoes or take off his jacket. He goes straight to the couch and collapses there like he can’t bear to take one more step. 

“How drunk are you?” Ryan asks from his back on the couch. His legs are opened a little, enough to look like an invitation. 

Sean bites his lip. “Not at all. How drunk are you?” 

“Drunk,” Ryan says. “Drunk enough that I can’t take my shoes off.”

“Christ,” Sean says, but he’s laughing. Ryan rolls his eyes and, really, Sean can’t watch him struggle to take his shoes off, so he kneels down by Ryan’s legs and pulls Ryan’s foot onto his lap. Ryan’s wearing those fucking ankle boot things that zip, so it’s a bitch to get them off of him, but he eventually does. He tries not to think about how close he is to Ryan or how warm Ryan’s socked feet are against Sean’s legs. 

Sean touches Ryan’s ankles with the purpose of moving his legs off of him, but then his fingers are touching smooth skin and Sean’s thumb is rubbing just above Ryan’s ankle just like Ryan’s thumb had done on the back of Sean’s hand at the bar. 

Ryan makes a tiny noise and Sean feels a sudden and all-too-clear want. There’s no hiding from the feeling. He wants to devour skin with his palms and taste with his mouth and feel that smooth warmth everywhere. _Fuck_. Fuck, how does Ryan do this to him? How do all his safely-guarded plans fall through when he’s this close to Ryan? It’s maddening. 

He unceremoniously drops Ryan’s feet and stands up. “You gonna sleep there tonight?” Sean asks him. 

Tonight, Ryan is as bad at hiding his real feelings as Sean is. Sean can clearly see the disappointment crawl across Ryan’s face and he sinks into the couch brings his legs up to the cushions. “Yeah, I think so.”

Sean nods and goes to the extra bedroom where Ryan usually sleeps when he isn’t taking the couch. He grabs the blanket off the air mattress and goes back to the living room. Ryan’s eyes are already closed and he doesn’t move or open them when Sean drapes the blanket over him. 

Sean isn’t stupid. He can definitely tell when someone is coming on to him and it felt like Ryan was coming on to him. He doesn’t know how to feel. He can’t even conjure up the thought that Ryan would want him like that. Except…he kissed Sean back the other night. He kissed back and didn’t push away. Sean was the one running; he was the one who ran at the bar. He’s the one who’s running right now. 

He goes to sleep feeling too aware of Ryan in the other room, a few feet and a solid wood door the only thing parting the two of them. The feelings Sean had just cleared away in the studio that day are back in full force. He lies on his stomach with his face in the pillows. He just wants everything to make sense again. 

***

Sean likes to write as soon as he wakes up and, with his bedroom door still closed, he can write without broadcasting that he’s up for the day. Nothing is coming to him, which is surprising because his head feels completely full. The words are all tangled up in his brain; he can’t get it out the way he wants. He writes a few lines and a lot of bullshit that he’s sure won't ever make sense before he abandons his notebook and goes out to use the bathroom. 

He’s not sure what to expect with Ryan today. It could be the same after the kiss and they can just pretend nothing happened (Sean is planning on taking that route) or Ryan could remember everything or nothing and the gap between them could only grow wider. 

It turns out that he doesn’t have to worry about it at the moment because Ryan isn’t in the apartment. There’s a sloppily-written note on the table for Sean from Ryan that reads: _Hey, I went to do my laundry at Nick’s. I would’ve taken yours but didn’t want to wake you – Ryan_. 

It’s hard to detect tone through a note, but nothing seems unusual, so Sean tries not to worry. He grabs his laptop and goes back to his room to attempt getting the jumble of words out of his head. He does better the second time around, but the words on his screen are cutting too close and Sean almost erases them several times, unwilling to write about that even if it’s all he can think about. 

Sean must fall asleep while he’s writing, because the next time he’s opening his eyes, he finds Ryan standing in his bedroom. His cheeks are red from the cold outside and he’s still wearing his jacket, so he couldn’t have been back for long. 

Sean sits up and knocks his laptop with his knee and _shit_ , the lyrics he’d written were just sitting open on the screen where Ryan could see. Sean pulls the laptop back on his lap and closes the screen before he looks at Ryan. “Hey.” 

“Hey,” Ryan says, motioning to Sean’s bed. “Do you mind?” 

“No, go ahead.” 

Ryan sits on the end of Sean’s bed. “I just wanted to talk to you. Sorry if I woke you. Did you get my note?” 

“Uh, yeah. You didn’t wake me, it's cool. I was just working on some shit.” 

Ryan smiles and looks at his hands. Sean can feel the tension creeping back in. “I was trashed last night,” Ryan says. "I hope I wasn’t a mess." 

“Nah, you were fine. I think Tom was mostly babysitting you.” 

“That explains that text from him where he called me a cockblocker.” 

In the small space of his bedroom, Sean can smell Ryan. He smells clean, so he must’ve showered before he left for Nick’s. 

“Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to tell you last night, but I think what we’re doing is really amazing,” Ryan says. He looks at Sean now. 

Sean swallows thickly. “What we’re doing?” 

“The band,” Ryan clarifies. "Watching you sing last night…it felt like you hit a whole new level. I don’t remember ever feeling as sure about your talent as I was last night. You were something else.” 

Sean is shit at taking compliments, especially from his own band. He can feel his cheeks pink up and scratches at the back of his neck. “Thanks, man. You were on point with your drumming, too.”

Ryan pulls himself up on Sean’s bed, folding his legs up, looking like he belongs there. Ryan smiles at him. As far as mindfucks go, Ryan is the king of them lately. Either he was too drunk last night to remember what happened at the bar and what could’ve happened back here at the apartment or he’s pretending again, like Sean has been pretending since that kiss…maybe even before that. 

“Do you remember anything from last night?” Sean asks. He’s curious, even if he shouldn’t be. 

Ryan shakes his head. “Not much. I think I remember you took my shoes off?” 

Sean tries not to flush at the memory. “Yeah, I did.” 

Ryan grins. “You're too good to me.” 

Sean waves him off. "Shut up. It was no big deal.”

Ryan laughs a little and ducks his head. Sean can’t see his eyes because his hair is in the way, but he can still see Ryan's smile and how it doesn’t stretch all the way across his face like he’s used to. 

“Hey, care to show me what you’re working on?” 

Sean looks at his keyboard and thinks of what he wrote versus what he wants to write and how Ryan can’t see either one. “It’s mostly shit. Pretty unusable.” 

Ryan changes position so that he’s on his stomach, his feet barely hanging off the end and his face pillowed on Sean’s mess of comforters that make up a nice little nest. He still can’t see Sean’s laptop in his new position, but Sean still defaults to his email to be extra-safe. 

Ryan looks at him through his lashes. His hand is close to Sean’s thigh. It looks like, if Ryan just extended his fingers all the way, he could brush Sean’s skin where the shorts he’s wearing end. Sean watches him without trying to look like he’s watching him. Ryan’s eyes slip closed and he rubs his face against Sean’s blanket, like he’s settling down for a nap. 

Sean doesn’t say anything. He pretends to check his email a few more times while he tries to figure out what he should be saying or doing. It was never hard before – conversation isn’t something difficult for Sean – but, with Ryan now, he just doesn’t know where to tread. 

Then, Sean does feel the barely-there graze of fingertips against the side of his knee. He looks at Ryan’s hand before he switches to his face. “I wanted to know if you’ve had any ghostly visitors recently,” Ryan says. 

“Ah, no. Not since the girl.” Huh, he hadn’t thought of that. He hadn’t noticed the lack of ghosts pestering him. They don’t even hang around outside anymore. The most contact he’s had with spirits since the dream of the dead girl has been the spirit that’s inhabiting Ross. “You're not dumping salt around the apartment, are you?” 

Ryan laughs. “No. I’ve just been thinking about how much they bother you on tour, but at home, it’s different.” 

“Maybe I’m pushing them away again. Apparently, they don’t care for me when I’m off-putting.” 

Ryan rolls over on his back and inches up the bed a bit. His head is just barely on Sean’s pillow. “I was worried for a while about the stuff they were saying to you.” 

“How it was my fault that girl died?” 

Ryan props himself up on his elbows and frowns at Sean. “Sean, don’t – ” 

“I don’t understand it myself. I still don’t know what they expect from me. Maybe when you die, you become really aware of everything all at once and you forget what it’s like to be a human and not know jack shit.”

“You think?” 

Sean shrugs. “I don't know, I’m a human.” 

Ryan lies back down, but he’s looking at Sean now. 

“It might be my fault and it might not, but if they want me to do something, they need to give me more information.” 

It’s weird that Sean is telling Ryan all of this. He didn’t want to because he didn’t want Ryan to worry. This is all stuff that he was saving for when he eventually told Tom about the dream and the girl in the paper. Now that he’s telling Ryan everything he's been thinking about, though, he can’t see why he thought he shouldn’t. 

“I just don’t want you to drive yourself crazy,” Ryan says. His eyes are closed again, his feet tucked underneath Sean’s comforter. 

“I save all the crazy for the songs.” 

Ryan smiles, but it doesn't last long. After that, they sit together. The silence doesn’t feel as deafening. Ryan falls asleep in Sean’s bed with his feet under Sean’s blanket. Sean doesn’t move because he doesn’t want to wake him up. He writes while Ryan sleeps, writes until the sun goes down. 

***

Sean begins to feel like maybe he and Ryan can put this whole kissing thing behind them and come out okay in the end. He begins to feel safer. It’s why he doesn't object when, after a particularly triumphant day in the studio, Ross invites them out and offers to pay. 

He still doesn’t drink a lot; even Ryan seems to be keeping himself in check this time. Logically, Sean knows that the alcohol can’t be the sole blame for his kiss with Ryan, but he doesn’t understand the alternative answer enough to warn for that. If he has to spend the rest of his life being careful of not getting fucked up and losing himself with Ryan, then so be it. It isn’t ideal, but it isn’t going to fuck everything up, either. 

“You guys really impressed the fuck out of me today,” Ross says. He’d watched their practice today and Tom had, of course, showed off for him, which made Max laugh at him. Ross raises his glass in a toast and the rest of them crowd around him. 

“To good fucking music,” Tom says. Ross laughs and nods. 

“To good fucking music.” 

The night slides by lighter and easier than the last few have been and Sean enjoys every second of it. If he can feel normal without the ghosts and without feeling shit that's dangerous to feel, then he’ll do it for as long as he can. 

He isn’t even worried when he and Ryan go home and Ryan leans against him in the backseat of his car. Max is bitching at them about starting to charge a fee for how many times he’s had to drive them home and, again, he steals Ryan’s car for the night. 

Ryan takes off his shoes and jacket by the door and then goes and sits in the center of Sean’s living room floor. 

“What are you doing?” Sean asks. He shrugs out of his own layers, stripping down to his t-shirt. 

“Sitting.” 

“No shit. Why not on the couch?” 

“The couch makes me tired. I don’t want to sleep yet.” 

“Oh, got some other parties to go to?” 

Ryan laughs. It’s finally the kind of rough, barking laughter that he can’t help and that Sean sort of loves. “No. Hey, are you hungry?” Ryan asks. “Because I’m hungry.” 

“I could eat,” Sean says with a shrug. 

Ryan gets on his knees and puts his hand out. “Help me up! I’m going to make us grilled cheese.” 

Sean goes and stands in front of Ryan. “I don’t even think I have cheese, dude.” 

“Shit, we don’t shop enough.” Ryan takes Sean’s hand before Sean is ready and tries to pull himself up. It doesn’t work and Sean slips to his knees instead of getting Ryan standing. “We’re too drunk to stand,” Ryan says mournfully, “and we have no cheese.” 

Sean rolls his eyes. “I can stand and we have cereal.” 

He proves his point by standing up and offering Ryan his hand again. Ryan is still on his knees, head tipped down. He doesn’t take Sean’s hand, but he’s smiling all wide and toothy. Without realizing beforehand, Sean quickly grows aware of their position. He’s standing and Ryan is on his knees, his head the perfect level to Sean’s crotch. It’d be easy to do a lot right now, to ask Ryan to touch him, to let Ryan touch him. The more Sean stares down at him, the more he has the very distinct urge to lick the hard edge of Ryan’s teeth. 

Ryan’s head is bowed a little. Sean isn’t sure how he never noticed how long Ryan’s eyelashes are, but it’s all he can pay attention to now – the dark line of lashes as Ryan looks up at him, eyes heated but hazy. Sean licks his lips and, before he can own up to his own actions, his hand is already hovering near Ryan’s shoulder. 

Ryan notices – of course he does. He’s drunk, but he’s still aware of Sean around him, maybe _more_ aware than when he’s sober. Neither of them is saying anything. Sean is standing there with his hand inches from Ryan’s body, closer to his face than his shoulder now, and Ryan is looking at him, pink mouth open and eyes heavy. 

Sean wants to touch. If he’s being honest, he knows he’s wanted it, wanted Ryan. He’s not sure he’s ever wanted something more in his life than to be able to touch Ryan right now. He wants to be able to sink to his knees and kiss the slack from Ryan’s mouth. He wants to rub his thumbs against Ryan’s cheekbones and scratch his fingertips against Ryan’s stubble. He wants to taste him again and see if it’s the same as last time. He wants to know what it’s like upright, how Ryan will react. 

He wants to do this so badly, he fucking wants _Ryan_ so badly. He can’t blame it on the drink because he’s not stumbling, he’s fucking fine. He’s so tired of running from the feelings that burn white-hot in his chest, of telling himself ‘no’ when all he wants is to scream ‘yes’ and take everything he can get, but he can’t bring himself to do it. There’s too much. He’s got too much on his plate already with the fucking ghosts and their shitty, cryptic words and the band – oh, shit, the _band_. They could never…they’d never hear the end of it from Tom and Max. 

“Ryan,” Sean says. His voice betrays him because it comes out as the beginning of something Sean can’t even hope to back up. The words feel strange and foreign hanging in the air between them. Sean almost feels like he’s watching this all happen outside of himself, like it’s a movie and he has no fucking clue what comes next. Ryan tips his head up now to fully look at Sean, head back and eyes dark, though the heavy softness of them is gone. 

His face has got this defiant tilt to it, like Sean can already guess that Ryan’s going to pretend he never wanted anything from Sean before Sean can tell him he doesn’t want him. Fuck, even if he said it, it wouldn’t be true. He wants. He wants so fucking badly that the only thing keeping him grounded is the one question that’s running on repeat in his head. 

_What do you want more? The band or Ryan?_

“Stop thinking so fucking much,” Ryan says. He doesn’t sound at all light or happy like he had before. They’re fucking slipping again and Sean doesn’t know how it happened so quickly. 

“Someone has got to do the thinking.” 

“Fuck you,” Ryan says. “You’re just scared.” 

Sean wasn’t expecting that; he wasn’t ready for Ryan to strike out. He wasn't ready for the truth.

“I’m not.” 

“Yes, you are. It’s fucking stupid. You’ll tangle with ghosts but it’s _me_ you’re afraid of? That’s fucking bullshit, Sean.” 

“You’re drunk,” Sean says. 

“I’m fine.” 

“If you’re fine, then why are you pushing this?” 

Ryan moves his hair out his face. Sean’s mind is a traitor because all he can think of is how beautiful Ryan is, how much he likes to be around him, how much he doesn’t want to fight with him. “You’re afraid. You don’t think I can’t see the look in your eyes right now? You think I don’t know when someone wants me as much as I want them?” 

“You’re only like this when you’re drunk,” Sean says.

Ryan laughs now and it’d be ridiculous if anyone else were watching them. Ryan is still on his knees and Sean is standing dumbly in his living room, trying to explain away the truth and ruining everything in the process. 

“We both remember the kiss, Sean. I know you do, and that shit the other night when you touched me when you took off my shoes? When you’re drunk is the only time you’ll be honest with yourself, when you’ll stop being scared of what you want.” 

“You don’t know what I want,” Sean hisses. 

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want me,” Ryan challenges. 

Sean can’t. Right now, Ryan is Medusa and if he looks, he’s dead, he’s gone, and so is their friendship and the band and everything Sean’s been fighting to protect. “You’ve been chasing something I can’t give you.” 

“That’s not an answer.” Ryan is standing now. He gets right in front of Sean, right in his space. Sean can smell him, smell the drinks he had and the cologne he’s wearing. “The way you kissed me that night…that’s not something you can fake.” 

“I was lonely,” Sean says, “and drunk and you were here.” 

“You’re lying.” 

Seriously, fuck Ryan and how well he knows Sean. Fuck what he thinks he knows. Doesn’t he care about the band? Doesn’t he want to save them before it’s too late? 

“Stop acting like you know what I’m thinking.” 

Ryan laughs, desperate and tight. “You can’t even look at me.” Ryan looks down at their feet and then Sean feels hands cupping the back of his hands. He doesn’t pull away. “I do know what you’re thinking, by the way – maybe not everything, but a lot, and you hate it because you can’t hide this from me.” His hands shift as he talks, sliding to take both of Sean’s in his own, his cool, rough fingertips meeting Sean’s. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Sean says. His defenses are falling, the walls crumbling, and Ryan is seeping inside of him. He’s tired of fighting it, of not having what he knows he really wants out of some martyr complex, like doing it for the band will make not having Ryan in the way he wants somehow easier to live with. At this rate, Sean doubts it would ever be easy. 

One of Ryan’s hands stays clasped with Sean’s and the other slides up his bare arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. Sean’s too tall and Ryan’s too short, so his hand curls around the back of Sean’s shoulder, urging him down, down, down. 

“Stop hiding, for one thing,” Ryan says softly. 

When Sean’s dipped down enough, Ryan lets go of his other hand and winds both arms around Sean’s middle, pressing his face into the crook of Sean’s neck, the tip of his nose cold against Sean’s skin. Sean’s hands are at his side, but he raises them and mimics the pose. He holds Ryan, his hands soaking up the warmth of Ryan’s compact body. 

“Sean,” Ryan says into Sean’s shoulder.

“Yeah?” Sean’s mouth is by Ryan’s ear and he can feel Ryan shiver. Every inch of Sean is at attention, reacting to Ryan’s body reacting to him. His fingers dig into the fabric of Ryan’s shirt. He has the insane wish to just sink inside of Ryan, to be absorbed by him and become a part of him and then he wouldn’t have to want or feel afraid because they’d be two halves of the same whole. 

Ryan pulls back some, enough that his nose brushes Sean’s cheek. He looks at Sean, really looks at him, and then his eyes slip closed and he leans forward. They’re kissing again. It’s nothing like their first kiss, one of pure want and fury and a lifetime of asking ‘why the fuck haven’t we always been doing this?’ This one is something else. This is Ryan asking Sean to be here with him and not run away; this is Ryan being fearless when he opens his mouth against Sean’s. 

Sean moans before he can help himself and Ryan’s hands fly to Sean’s face, kissing him harder. He’s really trying to shut down his brain and be here, give in, let go. Ryan wants to kiss him and Sean wants it, too. That should be enough. 

Sean makes good on his earlier urge, running his tongue along the line of Ryan’s teeth. Ryan shivers against him and Sean tugs him closer. There isn’t one inch of space between them. This is as close as Sean can get to fusing them together. 

Ryan backs them up. Sean seriously underestimated how take-charge Ryan is. Sean thinks he’s trying to lead them to his bedroom, but they hit the hallway wall instead, Sean landing against it with an ‘oof.’ They break the kiss then and Ryan grins at him with a wet mouth, bitten lips. Holy shit, Sean feels dizzy from it all. 

“You’re important to me,” Ryan says. “I want to be with you.” 

The words are too much when Sean’s brain is still caught up on kissing Ryan. Sean pulls him forward again so that he can kiss him once more. He tastes almost the same as last time, but slightly different from the drink or, maybe, the different brand of cigarettes he’s been smoking. Sean likes it, though, the heat and the wet and the way Ryan matches him, and digs his teeth into Sean’s lip. 

“What about you?” Ryan asks when they pull back to breathe. 

Sean doesn’t know. What about him? He’s a mess. He’s playing this in all the wrong ways. He should’ve stopped ten minutes ago and never found out what Ryan tasted like for a second time. Ryan’s waiting for an answer, but Sean is out of words, mouth no good for anything but kissing at this point. He doesn’t answer. Instead, he touches Ryan’s elbow and leaps into the fire. He tugs him forward for another kiss, hard and misaligned, and their teeth clack together embarrassingly hard. 

Ryan doesn’t seem too sad about not getting an answer. He presses up against Sean and leans up, hands braced against Sean’s chest, fingers digging into the fabric of Sean’s shirt, kissing him until he’s completely breathless. Sean’s mind is shutting down, one faction after another, until he’s fine with the warm push-pull of their mouths against each other and Ryan’s hand against his chest, keeping him pinned to the wall. Every sound Ryan makes, Sean wants to memorize it, keep it forever and feel it vibrating in his bones just like it is right now. It’s when he feels a hand brush the hard outline of his cock through his jeans that the systems come back to life. 

He’s looking at Ryan, who’s smirking and then undoing Sean’s jeans. “What?” Sean asks. 

“Shh, let me,” Ryan says. “I want to.” His fingers tug down Sean’s zipper. Sean tips his head to smack against the wall. Ryan’s hand disappears into Sean’s pants and then, and _then_ , Ryan is touching him through his boxer briefs. Sean’s world turns into a static-filled rush of blood. 

He hasn’t gotten off with another person in a long time, too long of a time, and this isn’t just a person from a bar or an ex. This is fucking Ryan. Sean arches up against the wall, his body chasing Ryan's fleeting touch. Ryan is coaxing Sean’s dick out of his pants, it’s Ryan smiling like a sly fox. Ryan closes his hand around Sean’s dick and Sean gets the image of that same hand, those clever fingers, being used for drumming, for creating music as deftly as they’re now stroking Sean. 

Thinking of the band right now is bad, but Sean’s opened the box and now he can’t close it, can’t even find the lid for it. He imagines Tom and Max on the outskirts of the room, watching either with approval or disdain, mostly saying how dumb this is, how this doesn’t affect just him and Ryan but all of them. The panic strikes quick and sharp like a slap to the face. Sean half-gasps because Ryan’s hand feels fucking amazing and he's touching this spot just under the head of Sean's dick, but he let this whole thing get away from him and now he has to reclaim it. 

“No,” Sean says. “No, stop, we can’t.” 

Ryan listens, drawing his hand back but raising an eyebrow, something knowing and painful flashing through his gaze. Sean wishes he weren’t like glass for Ryan, wishes he hadn’t been looking at Ryan. Why did he even kiss him again? 

“You don’t want me to touch you?” 

“I…Ryan, no, we can’t. It’s…it’s too much.” 

“We can kiss, then. I don’t care,” Ryan says. He tries to lean back in to kiss Sean again, but Sean grabs him up by the shoulders and stops him. 

“We can’t do anything.” 

“What the fuck are you saying?” Ryan asks. There’s heat to his cheeks, that defiant look back on his face. He looks like he’s prepared to fight tooth and nail and Sean is terrified of that. 

“Maybe if we weren’t such good friends or if we weren’t in the band, then we could…I mean – ” 

“You’re thinking again, aren’t you? Don’t start thinking again, Sean. You overthink everything. Please don’t do that to this.” 

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Sean says. “Empires is the most important thing in my life. You’re a part of that, but if we do this – ” He squeezes Ryan’s shoulders. “If we fuck that up…it’ll ruin everything.” 

“What makes you think it’ll ruin anything? Maybe it’ll be good! Maybe we’ll be happy together like normal fucking people regardless of the band.” 

“Look at Jon and Ryan,” Sean says. “They dated, they broke up, and it ruined their band. They’re not even friends anymore. Jon left the fucking country to get away from him!” 

“We’re not them.” Ryan shrugs out of Sean’s grasp. “We’re not them at all. You’re scared and you’re running again. At least own the fuck up to that, Sean.” 

“I’m doing this for us, you realize?”

“You’re making us both miserable to protect us? Oh, thanks so much, Sean.” 

Sean doesn’t know what to say now. Ryan is upset and it’s obvious that he’s willing to risk everything for a chance to make it work with Sean, but Sean isn’t Ryan. He isn’t willing to do the same; that’s where they fall apart. Ryan is so clearly hurt and that’s hurting Sean, it really is – he never wanted to make Ryan hurt. He wanted them to be happy, to be the same as they always were, but Sean isn’t doing a good job of it. 

Ryan is still clearly waiting for something from Sean, but he’s got nothing. If he talks, he’ll start spewing shit or apologizing – or…he doesn’t know what he’ll do and that’s scarier than anything else. The room is still hot, it smells like the beginnings of sex. Sean's fucking cock is still hanging out of his pants. 

He can almost see when Ryan retreats in on himself, when a wall that had never been there before slides firmly into place. He can see the second that Ryan loses his trust in Sean. 

Ryan’s looking downward. “I’m going to crash,” he tells the floor. 

Sean drops his hands to his pants, tucking himself away. He pretends like his hands were never raised at all, that he never wanted at all, that he isn't hard right now and begging for Ryan to finish what he started. Sean locks the moment down and tries so fucking hard not to let it bubble up into that weird zone where he translates every moment, failure or otherwise, into some vaguely related lyrics. Writing songs about how much he wanted to be able to kiss Ryan isn’t much better than actually kissing him. 

He scratches the back of his neck. He can’t think of anything else to say, not a ‘stop’ or ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I don’t mean to be like _this_.’ All he can think to say is, “Okay.” 

Ryan laughs, but it’s bitter and cuts the air in the room. He slips past Sean. He knows that if it wasn’t four in the morning and he hadn’t been drinking and Max didn’t have his car, Ryan wouldn’t even be here right now. He’s gone into the spare room, slamming the door closed before Sean can even consider saying ‘goodnight.’ 

***

In the morning, Sean wakes up feeling like shit. He doesn’t even want to get out of bed because he’s afraid of what he’ll find. Lying there and staring at the ceiling is no better because every second he’s replaying what happened, what he should have said, what he should have done, what would have happened if he hadn’t stopped it. Sean finally gets up and walks out into the living room. The apartment is silent and the door to the spare bedroom is open – that’s empty, too. There’s no note, but Sean isn’t surprised. He knew Ryan was gone because the air hadn’t felt the same, didn’t feel full or warm or smell like world-famous Luciani pancakes. 

Without anyone there, Sean heads back to bed. He can’t even bring himself to write. He just lies there and thinks about what happens next. Last night went the exact opposite of how Sean wanted it to go. He rolls over and presses his face into his pillows. He and Ryan didn’t even part on good terms. They’re scheduled for a practice today, so maybe Ryan just needed some time. Sean isn’t exactly brokenhearted by Ryan not being here right now because he doesn’t know what would’ve happened if he had been. Would they have talked? Fought some more? Time will be good and maybe they can patch shit up after practice. 

Sean didn’t sleep much, his mind keeping him restless for the remainder of the night. He falls back to sleep again – the good kind of sleep, where you’re dead to the world for a few hours –and doesn’t have to think about how he fucked up. When he wakes back up and his phone is ringing, the feeling sinks right back into his chest, the heavy dread that he knows won’t go away on its own. 

Tom is calling him and Sean fumbles around with sleep in his eyes before he manages to answer it. “Yeah?” 

“You’re late,” Tom says. He doesn’t sound annoyed, though, just worried but lacking his usual bitching tone. Sean glances at the clock on the nightstand. Tom is right. Sean should have been at practice twenty minutes ago. 

“Shit, I’m sorry. I’ll come right now.” 

“It’s cool. See you when you get here.” 

Sean doesn’t even shower, just pulls on the same pants from last night and scrubs a hand through his hair before picking up his jacket and wallet and taking off. He’s grown too used to riding around in Ryan’s car, so he’s even later by the time he gets to Max’s place. What’s weird is that Ross’ rental is parked in the driveway next to Max’s mom’s car, but Ryan’s isn’t. Sean tries not to worry about it and slips through the side door, heading downstairs to the basement. 

Tom and Ross are sitting side-by-side on the couch and Max is at his computer messing around with what sounds like one of the tracks they recorded last practice. Sean glances at the empty kit in the corner. 

“If you needed a ride, you could’ve called,” Tom says.

Sean rolls his eyes and slips off his jacket. “So what are we doing?” 

“Not sure. We’ve been going over the stuff we just did; getting geared up, you know?” Tom says as he looks at Max.

“What about Ryan?” Sean asks. “Is he here?” 

“Ah, no, he texted me earlier and said he didn’t feel good so he wouldn’t be coming tonight,” Max says. 

“Oh.” Sean can’t ignore the pang of worry, the red flag that immediately pops up for him. It could just be that he needs more time before he can face Sean or it could be that he’s not willing to let this go. He tries not to let his worry show up on his face. He tunes his guitar instead, even though he doesn’t know if he’ll even end up using it tonight. 

Practice turns out to be not much of a practice at all. Sean doesn’t feel like singing and they can’t record shit without Ryan unless they want to add in his part later, but that defeats the whole organic thing they’re doing with the other songs. They sit together and listen to the songs they’ve already recorded. It’s not a complete waste; something about listening to stuff he’s written before, things he doesn’t remember writing, sparks up a new fuel inside of him. Even though he finds the night too distracting to write during, he might pen some lines down just so that he doesn’t forget this feeling. 

They leave practice early, but Tom slides up to Sean before they leave. “Hey, can I talk to you?” he asks. Sean shrugs and then nods as he follows Tom up the stairs and out the side door to the driveway. It’s freezing cold, but Sean is in a hoodie, Tom in less than that. 

“Nick texted me today to tell me that Ryan said he’s staying there now,” Tom says. He’s honest to a fault, brutal, even. He pulls no punches, especially with Sean. 

He can’t say he’s surprised at all. “Yeah, I figured he would eventually. I mean, we never had an agreement or anything. Ryan’s like a stray cat or something…he wanders.” Sean feels sick just talking about it, how he’s lying because he’s one hundred percent sure that, if they hadn’t gotten into it last night, Ryan would be at practice and on the couch with Sean when he got home. 

Tom looks at him for a long moment and Sean thinks he might know everything. If he does, he doesn’t say shit about it. He just shakes loose a cigarette from his pack and slides it between his lips. “Will you go back and tell Ryan that I’m smoking?” Tom asks. 

Sean nods and Tom gives him a two-finger salute as he flicks his lighter to life. Sean heads back downstairs. Max is gone, but Ross is still sitting there on the couch, phone in hand. He looks up when he hears Sean and smiles. 

“Tom wanted me to tell you he’s outside smoking.” 

“Tom is always smoking,” Ross says. 

“Where’s Max?” 

“Oh, he went upstairs for something.” 

Sean goes to his guitar and puts it up on the wall. While he’s doing that, the air in the room changes, crackles with something that makes the hair on Sean’s arms stand up on end. It’s a feeling he hasn’t gotten since seeing the girl in the dream and the ghosts outside of his building who watched him from the ground.

The feeling is coming from behind him. Sean is sure that, if he turns around, he’s going to be face to face with that girl or, even worse, someone else who died because of him. He spends far too long fixing his guitars, but the feeling still isn’t going away. He can definitely feel a presence in the room, pressing in on the edges of his mind. Sean shivers and turns around. 

To his surprise, there’s no one – well, no _ghost_ , since Ross is still in the room and texting, but he looks up at Sean, knees pulled to his chest and one eyebrow rose up. 

“Everything copacetic?” Ross asks. 

“Yeah, man, just kinda all over the place tonight, you know?” 

Ross nods and unfolds himself, standing up and stretching so that his body is one tiny, thin reed. The presence is gone now, but as Ross heads towards the stairs, Sean notices that the spirit attached to him is glowing brighter than usual. 

***

Not much changes the next day. He wakes up and doesn’t talk to Ryan. He writes but hates almost all of it. He has the songs they’ve recorded on his phone and plays them to try and recapture the spark he felt last night. That seems to do the trick; Sean taps into something that has his hand double-timing to catch up with how fast the words are filling his brain. He only stops writing when he’s too hungry to keep going. Without Ryan, he really hasn’t been keeping up with things like personal hygiene and eating. 

Three more days pass like that and Sean barely leaves his apartment. He’s writing and drinking, mostly. He does shower and texts Tom to remind him that he’s not dead. He hasn’t heard from Ryan. He misses him. Honestly, he does – he missed him the second he walked away to go to the spare bedroom that night. He hates himself for missing Ryan but not missing him enough to go after him. He’s making himself miserable for what? His friendship with Ryan took a hit and the band isn’t practicing. Isn’t this exactly what he didn’t want to happen? 

He’s showered today, though, and has a few songs ready to show to Max and Tom. He actually arrives to practice early. Ross is here again, but their Ryan isn’t. Sean hasn’t personally been texting him, but Tom has, and he told Ryan about every practice they’ve had since that night. Sean collapses in a seat next to Max. “I’ve got some stuff to show you,” he says, opening his laptop before finding the right stuff and then handing it over to Max. At the last minute, Sean took out the song that he likes the most, the one that also feels too intimate, like a clear snapshot of Sean’s heart. 

It’s just he and Max in the studio right now because Tom is dicking around upstairs with Ross – fuck, maybe he’s even talking to their Ryan while he’s at it. It’s always hard to read Max, even harder to gauge what he thinks about something while he’s reading it. Sean picks at his nails and rolls the chair back and forth and ignores the abandoned kit in the corner. 

“I like it,” Max says finally.

Sean smiles at him. “Which one?” 

“Well, they all fit where we’re going,” Max says, turning the laptop back to Sean. “I’m excited to hear what you sound like on these.” 

Tom comes back and Sean lets him see the songs, too. Ross reads them once Sean says that he doesn’t mind. These are definitely dark songs, Sean knows it. That’s what Max meant when he said that they fit the grit of the songs already selected for their next album. It feels weird to talk about band shit, about direction, without Ryan there. Sean wants to ask about him, but at the same time, he doesn’t want to know in case it’s something he doesn’t want to hear. 

At the end of practice, Max’s mom needs Max and Tom to move some shit for her, so they head out together, squabbling up the stairs like true blood brothers. Ross is in his usual spot on the couch. Sean is shutting down his laptop when he feels it, that same prickling, heavy feeling in the air. It’s stronger this time and Sean _knows_ something is here. 

“You’re still resisting,” a voice says. Sean jumps in his seat before he realizes that it’s just Ross. He turns in his chair, kicking his foot out to stop him so that he’s facing Ross. He’s not looking at Sean, but the spot in his chest where the spirit attached itself originally is glowing even brighter than the last time Sean noticed it. 

“What?” Sean asks. 

Ross lifts his head and, instead of his normal eyes, there’s nothing but black, no white, no nothing but darkness. “I said, you’re still putting up too much resistance. No one can get through to you.” 

“Ross?” Sean asks. He stands now, though he isn’t sure what to do. In all his years and all his experiences, he’s never fucking seen this happen. 

“No, but I don’t think he’ll mind if I borrow him for a minute,” Ross says – well, his body says, because apparently, Ross has checked out. 

“You’re a ghost, then?” Sean asks. Suddenly, the feeling makes sense, why it was only happening when it was just he and Ross in the room. Sean was sensing Ryan’s attached spirit. “You’re the one inhabiting him?” Ross nods. Sean can barely look at him with his pitch-black eyes and expressionless face. “I didn’t think attached spirits were strong enough to do that.” 

“It was a challenge, but I had to do it. I’m the only one who can get through to you.” 

“Get through to me?” 

“The others said that there is a barrier between them and your home.” 

“A barrier? The only times I’ve ever been able to keep spirits away from me were when I actively tried and when Ryan was hiding salt in my pockets.” 

Ross shrugs. “I don’t know. All I know is that not one spirit can get to you at home.” 

“But that girl did…do you know what’s going on with her? She said I killed her by not saving her.” 

“She was very angry,” the spirit inside of Ross tells him. “Honestly, she shouldn’t have blamed you. You didn’t know yet.” 

“Know what? Damn it, don’t you guys ever just get to the fucking point?” 

“There’s a person here who is stealing people,” Ross says.

“Stealing people? You mean…like all those missing people on the news?” 

Ross nods, but it’s just barely. The spirit must not be strong enough to control his body beyond using him as a mouthpiece. “He likes to collect them. He didn’t mean to kill the girl, but in doing so, he helped us.” 

“Where do I come in?” Sean asks. He doesn’t see a connection. He’s not a police officer or Batman. What can he do that any other person in Chicago couldn’t? 

“He’s good about covering his tracks,” the spirit says. “The only ones who know where he’s keeping his collection are the ones who were once there and are no longer.” 

“Are you talking about more people he killed?” Sean feels sick. What if every person on the news in the last few weeks is dead?

“He didn’t exactly kill them,” Ross offers, “but there are only a few. They shared their stories and they got passed around until someone thought of you.” 

“Why me?” Sean asks.

“You’re the only one who can hear us in the entire city.” 

“Shit.” Sean thinks he might puke. He really is their last resort…there is no one else. It all falls to him like he knew it always would. “I can’t. This is too much. What are you telling me? That I’m the only one who can save these people?” 

“Well, we certainly can’t, can we?”

Sean presses his hands to his eyes. He doesn’t want this, not on top of trying to record and all this shit with Ryan. He’s just a person, just a man, and not meant for more than making music, definitely not handling people’s lives. 

“Then I’ll tell the police…” 

“How will you explain how you know where this man is?” 

“I don’t know. I’ll think of something.” 

Ross doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are still pitch-dark. Finally, a rumbling breath moves through him. Sean doesn’t know whether to be worried or relieved. Ross tilts his head a little, like the spirit is testing how much of Ross it can move. “I didn’t want to have to tell you this,” he says, “but the man has someone close to you.” 

“What?” Sean asks. “What the fuck did you say?” 

“He doesn’t know you or the one he took; he just wanted to add to his collection.”

Without really thinking about it, Sean launches himself forward and grabs Ross up by the collar of his shirt. “Who is it? Who is in danger?” Sean can’t breathe, not until he gets his answer. He’s fisting both hands in Ross’ shirt. Slowly, he notices that Ross’ eyes are draining of the black. The whites of his eyes are coming back, the solid brown color of his iris returning to him. The spirit is fading or, at least, has lost its energy for the night. 

“No, wait, please tell me who it is!” Sean shouts, louder than he should. But the spirit is gone from possessing Ross and, slowly, he watches Ross come back to himself. Sean moves his hands from fisting Ross’ shirt to holding on to his shoulders because he remembers being possessed himself and how, right after, you can’t really move. 

Ross blinks a few times in confusion. He looks at Sean’s hands on him and then back at Sean’s face. “What’s going on?” 

“Are you eating enough? You kinda blacked out.” Yeah, it’s a lie, but it’s easier than the truth and Sean figures that, after what he’s just been told, he can afford to lie to someone who wouldn’t understand it. 

“I do feel kind of woozy,” Ross says. 

“Here, you sit down and I’ll go and get Tom,” Sean says. He lowers Ross to the couch and then darts upstairs to get Tom. He stops at the landing between the basement and the small set of stairs that open up to the kitchen through a door. He’s shaking, feeling like he’s going to throw up. He can’t even process half the shit he was just told. The most stark, frightening thing is that someone he knows has been kidnapped. What’s even more terrifying is that it might be Ryan. 

Sean slips through the upstairs door once he’s composed himself and, luckily, Max’s parents aren’t hanging around. He finds Tom and Max coming out of Danielle’s old bedroom, Tom bitching about his back and being too old to move furniture. They both stop short when they see Sean. 

“Sean,” Max says, “you don’t look so good.” 

“Yeah,” Tom says, “it looks like you’ve seen a…oh, shit. Did you see a ghost?” 

“Never mind that! When’s the last time either of you spoke to Ryan?” 

“Why?” 

“Just tell me!” Sean hisses, trying to keep his voice low for Max’s parents’ sake. 

“I haven’t talked to him since yesterday,” Max says. 

“This morning for me,” Tom says. “I texted him before practice to ask if he’d bless us with his presence, but he never replied.” 

“No,” Sean says. “Fuck, no.” 

“Sean, seriously, is everything okay?” 

“No, I don’t think it is.” 

Sean takes Max and Tom into the kitchen and tries to explain to them what’s been happening since they got off tour, how the ghosts told Sean that there was something important on the horizon, the dead girl from the paper visiting him, and, now, the spirit inside of Ross that passed on the information that someone they know is in danger. 

Afterward, it’s hard to say that he feels better after telling them, but he does. It used to be just he and Ryan who knew. Of course, he should have told Max and Tom forever ago; they could’ve helped, could’ve…protected each other.

Sean gets out his phone and opens up his contacts, preparing to call everyone whose number he has, but Max stops him. “It’s three in the morning, dude,” Max says, “way too late to call and ask if anyone’s been kidnapped.” 

“So what? We’re supposed to wait until morning to find out who’s close to being someone that only I can see?” 

“I know you need to calm down. I’m sure Ryan is okay. Tom talked to him this morning. We need…well, we should tell the cops. You can’t do this on your own, Sean.” 

“I can’t tell them anything. The spirit lost its control before it could tell me the guy’s name or where he lives and, even if I could tell the police, how would I explain it? They’d lock me away or I’d end up on a reality show.” 

“We’ll call around in the morning,” Max says. “We all will.” 

Sean doesn’t like the idea of waiting. Morning might as well be an eternity away, as far as he’s concerned. He’s scared. He can’t stop seeing Ryan trapped somewhere, alone, just as scared as Sean is right now. He pushes his hands through his hair. His phone feels like a weighted stone in his pocket. 

“I’m going to take you home, Sean,” Tom says. “Let me go get Ryan.” 

“He’s probably dizzy,” Sean says. “The spirit drained him.” 

Tom bites his lip and something passes through his eyes that remind Sean of the first time he talked to Ryan after the ghost that took his body deceived him. Tom nods, though, and slips through the back room and down the stairs. Sean stands in the hallway with Max, his back pressed against the wall. In front of him are pictures of Max and Danielle as kids.

“If something happened to him, it’ll be my fault,” Sean says. 

“Nothing happened to him,” Max says. He doesn’t try to figure out why, just wants Sean to believe that everything is fine. It doesn’t work because Sean doesn’t believe in much anymore. Tom returns and Ross is at his side, Tom’s hands looped around his thin waist. He looks okay and he should be fine. Sean wishes he could care more about how Ross is doing, but he can’t think of anything except for the answer he so desperately wants. 

Tom drives Ross’ rental to Sean’s apartment. “I think I want to stay here tonight,” Tom says, killing the ignition before glancing over at Sean. A streetlight is hitting the car in a funny way, making everything inside a hazy orange. Sean can barely see Tom’s eyes. 

“You’re worried I’m going to do something stupid,” Sean says. 

“I’m tired and I’m scared and I don’t know what the fuck is going on.” 

“Your air mattress is still here,” Sean says. 

They go upstairs. Tom deposits Ross in the spare bedroom, though it doesn’t even really feel like a spare anymore. It isn’t to Sean. It’s _Ryan’s_ room and now Tom and his Ryan are going to be there when it should be _his_ Ryan. 

Tom stands in the living room and plays with the hem of his sweater. “I’m going to go and check on him,” he says, jerking his thumb towards the room where Ross is sleeping. Sean nods and Tom gives him a good, hard look before he walks to the room, his old room. He stops at the doorway and turns around to face Sean. “Hey, I trust you,” Tom says, “but don’t do anything stupid, okay?” 

“I won’t.” He doesn’t know what to do at all. He doesn’t know how to keep going when he knows that, somewhere in the city he calls home, the place he loves and trusts and creates in, there are people scared and suffering…maybe one of them being one of his people. 

Tom taps his hand against the frame of the door and nods. “It’ll make sense come morning.” He waits for Sean to tell him he’s going to go to bed, too, before he goes into the room. Sean goes to his room, but he doesn’t think he’ll sleep. His soul feels heavy, his brain a rock sinking in the sea. It’s the part of his whole ‘gift’ that he hates dealing with: the fact that there aren’t many like him, that maybe there’s no one else like him. Everything falls on his shoulders and every decision has a consequence. If he had just fucking told Ryan how he really felt instead of chicken-shitting out and pushing him away, Ryan would’ve been here where Sean could see him and know he was fine. 

Sean backs up against his closet door, sliding down it onto the floor and sitting there in the semi-darkness. His door is closed and the two rooms of the small apartment are probably far enough apart that Sean could talk on the phone without Tom hearing him. His phone is burning a hole in his pocket, so Sean lifts it out, rubbing his thumb against the back like it’s a makeshift worry-stone. Instead of calling Ryan, the sensible thing is to text him. So Sean does that. 

' _I need to know that you’re okay. Text me back, please._ '

One minute passes and then two and Sean compulsively checks to make sure the message sent even though he knows it did. Ryan doesn’t answer and the panic that strikes Sean is so intense that he can’t stop himself from calling Ryan. The phone rings endlessly. Sean leans his head back against the closet door and counts the rings. When it breaks, his heart jumps because he thinks Ryan answered, but it’s his voicemail clicking on, a much happier, safer Ryan telling Sean (or whoever else happens to call him) to leave a message and he’ll call back. 

Sean squeezes his eyes closed. “Ryan, listen, if you’re listening to this, please call me back or…Tom and Max. I don’t care who, just call. Some shit is going down. I need to know you’re okay, Ryan…I’m sorry.” 

He hangs up. The fear hasn’t subsided. If anything, it’s grown into a tangible beast that’s clawing at Sean’s chest, trying to force its way out. He stretches his leg out, his foot sliding underneath his bed. His heel rolls over something hard and gritty and Sean jerks his foot back. Sean sets his phone down and crawls across the floor to his bed. He’s got the lamp in his room on and he can see a thick line of what looks like sand on his floor. He reaches out without hesitation and touches at the line. It isn’t sand, too rough for that. He scoops some up and rubs it between his fingers, smells it. 

It’s salt. Sean wipes his hand off on his pants and then follows the salt trail. It continues in both directions, meeting at the head and foot of his bed, forming a circle. Sean didn’t do this, but he’s willing to bet that he knows who did. It fits with what Ross’ attached spirit told him about how the ghosts had encountered a barrier and weren’t able to speak to him. The last ghost who visited him was the dead girl from the newspaper and, since then, not a thing has happened to him, not even a dream. 

His head is too heavy and the answers he wants are too far away. He crawls up into his bed with his clothes still on and his phone next to his head on the pillow in case Ryan calls him back. Sean sleeps well, all things considered. By the time he wakes up, it’s well into morning. He snatches up his phone a few seconds after his eyes open. There’s no text from Ryan…no missed calls, either. 

He gets out of bed and steps on the little crystals of salt that had stuck to him last night. The living room is quiet and the door to the spare bedroom is cracked enough that Sean can see Tom and Ross still sleeping inside. Both of them are on the mattress, not twined in a particularly intimate way. Tom’s on his side and Ross is settled behind him, head on Tom’s back, but Sean still feels like he shouldn’t be looking. Instead, he goes out into the hall to call Ryan again. 

Again, there’s no answer and again, Sean leaves a pleading voicemail on his machine saying that if he’s safe and listening to just call back. He tucks his phone in his pocket and goes to make coffee, the kind Tom likes to drink because he’s too jittery to drink it himself. He doesn’t leave his phone alone for long. He’s scared it might be Ryan the ghosts were talking about, but if it isn’t, he needs to check on some other people. 

He calls his parents, extended family that lives in the city. He goes through all the names in his phone of people who are in or around Chicago. Almost all of them answer when he calls or they text him back, ask him why he sounds funny. It’s because he still hasn’t heard from Ryan. 

He texts Max and asks him who he’s talked to and if Ryan contacted him. He’s waiting for a text back when there’s a knock on the door. Sean drops his phone on the counter and rushes to the door. Outwardly, he probably looks insane – he feels it a little, too – but he just needs to know. He opens the door and there, right in front of him, is Ryan. 

“Fuck, fuck, you’re okay,” Sean says. He forgets himself because he’s just so goddamn relieved. He tugs Ryan into the apartment and pulls him in for a hug. He completely forgot how they’re not really on speaking terms. 

“What are you doing, Sean?” Ryan says. Sean lets him go and Ryan backs up. He won’t meet his gaze. 

“You’ve been ignoring my calls and texts,” Sean says. That’s – well, Christ, if Ryan is alright, then he’s been getting all of Sean’s calls and texts and ignoring them. 

“Because I didn’t want to talk to you.” 

“It was fucking important, Ryan! Fuck, I thought something bad happened to you. It wasn’t even about – ” Sean waves a hand around. “Us.” 

The air is tight between them. Sean leans back against the closet door. He feels stupid for worrying so much. He was making himself sick with it when Ryan was fine and wouldn’t even let Sean know that he was. 

“I’m sorry,” Ryan says a few moments later. “I thought you wanted to talk about…” He trails off, but Sean still knows what he means. “I didn’t think it was ghost-related or something.” 

“So, what, Max told you what was going on and you came over here to apologize?”

“No, I haven’t talked to him, either. Look, I didn’t know what else to do.”

Sean looks at Ryan now. “I don’t really understand.” 

To Sean’s surprise, Ryan meets his gaze. “I think something happened to Nick.” 

Sean’s stomach drops. “What?” 

“He didn’t come home the other night, so I thought he was just staying at his girl’s place, you know? But she calls me today to ask me if I’ve talked to him. She tells me she hasn’t seen him in three days.” 

“And when’s the last time you saw him?” 

“Same as her, three days ago.” 

“Fuck.” He hadn’t even thought of Nick. He’d called him but Scimeca was always busy with work or schmoozing and Sean had been so sure that it was Ryan. 

“I came over to ask if you guys thought I should file a missing person’s report,” Ryan says. 

“Listen,” Sean says, turning back around to face Ryan. “I think I know what happened to Nick.” 

“You’re being weird.” 

“You know that dead girl who came to me?” Sean asks. Ryan nods. “And you know all those missing person cases on the news? It’s all being done by one guy. This spirit came to me and told me that I’m the only one who can help them in the city. It also told me that he took someone close to me.” 

He watches Ryan’s face carefully for the moment it sinks in. He pales a little and his eyes desperately search Sean’s. “You’re saying he took…Nick?” 

“I thought it was you,” Sean says, rubbing at his eyes, “I didn’t even think – ”

“You said the ghosts told you who was doing this shit? Does that mean you know where he is? We can go and get the cops! We need to go and save Nick!” 

“I don’t know where he is. The spirit faded before it could tell me.” 

Ryan runs his hands in his hair, pacing Sean’s living room. Suddenly, their problems with each other seem small in comparison to one of their friends being held captive by a murderer. 

“Jesus,” Ryan says, “this is…I can’t fucking believe this.” 

“We can find him,” Sean says. “I know we can. I just have to get them to tell me where he is.” 

Ryan stops and stares at Sean, his eyes burning. “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of having to depend on the dead, why they play such a big part in my life. I’m sick of watching _you_ kill yourself over them and what they say to you. I can’t. I can’t deal with this shit anymore. I’m done with it, Sean.” 

Sean doesn’t know what to say. Ryan is yelling at him. He’s upset – of course he is. Sean’s upset, too. He’s scared. But this all is coming on the heels of their last fight and they’re already strained in addition to the relief that Ryan isn't the one who was taken. It really is just one thing after another. All this shit Ryan is spewing sounds like he’s been bottling it up for a long fucking time. 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Sean says. “The ghosts are the only way we have of finding Nick.” 

Ryan sets his jaw tight. “Good luck with that, then,” he says, turning away from Sean. He stalks to the front door and slams it shut behind him on his way out. The echoing sound of Ryan’s words and his departure rings loudly in Sean’s ears. 

After Ryan leaves, Sean doesn’t feel anything. He’s already full of too much shit, he can’t carry anymore. He can’t solve kidnapping cases and appease Ryan and fix whatever the fuck is wrong with them – he just can’t. He’s become too full, swinging out past that point and becoming numb to it all instead. When he turns around to head back to his room, he sees Tom standing just outside the spare room, looking at him. Tom has done the intra-band fighting thing before, and though he has more claims in this band than his last, he still doesn’t say anything. 

“You want to help me clean up some salt?” Sean asks. 

***

Tom and Sean get the salt out of Sean’s room and Ross wakes up sometime after that. Sean is expecting Tom to ask about Ryan while they’re cleaning up, but he doesn’t. They were hardly being quiet; Tom probably heard everything already. With the salt cleaned up and Ross awake, Sean waits to see if his spirit will take over again. The attachment around Ross is weaker today than before, so Sean figures it took a lot out of a low-level spirit to speak to him for as long as it did. He probably won’t be able to get any more information out of it. That means he either has to go looking for the ghosts or wait for them to come to him. 

“What are we going to do about Nick?” Tom asks when Ross is out of the room. They’re sitting together at the kitchen table and drinking beers that Sean dug out of his vegetable crisper. 

“We’re going to find him.” 

“What about Ryan?” 

“I’m not sure. I don’t think he wants to speak to me.” 

“This is weird,” Tom says. “This isn’t something normal bands have to deal with. He probably needs time. I don’t know, not everyone can deal with it, I guess.” 

Sean takes a swig from his beer. “Maybe I shouldn’t have ever said anything. It’d be easier that way. No one would have to worry and no one would get involved.” 

“But then you’d be handling it all on your own and that can’t be good for you.” 

“Still, I think Empires would be better off with a normal lead singer.” 

Tom smiles at him. “Then we wouldn’t be Empires. This isn’t your resignation, is it?” 

“No,” Sean laughs, but it comes out wrong, too bitter. “I’m here if you’ll still have me.” 

“I’ll help you, you know? You can come to me.” 

“Thanks, man,” Sean says, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. Nick is still in danger, Ryan is still pissed off. He’s lost control of almost everything in his life besides the music. 

“Hey, I’m starving. You wanna go out to dinner?” Ross says as he comes back into the room. 

“Yeah,” Tom says. He looks at Sean. 

“No, I’m cool. You two go ahead.” He needs to stay here to see if a spirit will come to him.

Tom looks like he doesn’t want to leave Sean alone, but Sean smiles at him, urging him to go. If he’s alone, it’ll increase the chance for the spirits to come to him. Tom leaves and promises to check in on Sean in a while. When he’s all alone, Sean opens the door to his balcony, the cold fall air rushing inside his living room. He sits on the floor of his living room and waits. 

The thing about the ghosts always being there is that he didn’t have to learn how to call them to him. He’d just open his eyes and they’d be there. Only recently has he tapped into repelling them and, now that he has, he has to figure out a way to send a signal that he wants to talk. 

He tries to keep himself calm, keep an open mind, make sure he’s being inviting. He does this for a half-an-hour until he figures that he might need more. “Hey,” Sean says to the room at large. “I need to talk to someone. I need some help. I’m not resisting anymore.” He feels a little stupid talking to himself, but if it works and he can fix everything, he’ll gladly do it. 

He cracks an eye open and scans the room around him. There’s no spirit to be seen, so he closes his eyes and keeps talking. “Please, this is important. Someone I care about could be hurt. All I need is one of you who know something about the collector.” 

Still no spirit comes to him. Sean sits there and waits, talking about what he needs until his hands and feet are freezing from the open door. By the time Tom texts him to check on him, he’s been sitting there for close to three hours. He stands up to close the door but, before he does, he checks the streets below just in case he managed to get a spirit to show up. There’s no one down there, so Sean goes back inside, locking up his door. 

He’s not sure what to do now. He’ll have to keep trying or go out and look for ghosts somewhere else in the city. Sean lies in his bed. His last hope is that one of the spirits will come to him in his dream like the dead girl did. He’s tired, both physically and emotionally, and he falls into sleep soon after he shuts his eyes. 

***

He never dreamed that night and no spirits were waiting for him when he woke up. Sean spends the morning on his laptop looking up all the information he can on the people who’d gone missing. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for. He doesn’t think he can find something that the police haven’t yet, but he still looks up the locations of the people who were kidnapped, where they were living before they were taken away from their homes and their lives. 

He can’t see a connection. The missing people aren’t strictly just from the city – there are some from the suburbs – but most are from the city. Sean doesn’t find anything about suspects – of course not, because the news isn’t trying to solve it, they’re just telling you about it. This isn’t a movie and Sean isn’t a genius. He really doesn’t know what the fucking world expects from him. 

When Sean’s found everything he could about the case, he calls Tom. He’s not sure if he and Ross are still hanging out or if they had a late night, but it isn’t too early, so he figures he’s safe. Tom picks up pretty quick and it kind of surprises Sean. 

“Hey, I didn’t wake you, did I?” 

“No, I was just hanging around here. What’s going on?” 

“I wanted to know if you wanted to go scrounge up some ghosts with me later?” 

“Are we going to have to sit in a cemetery at midnight or some shit?” 

“Well, I’m definitely going to add ‘cemetery’ to the list.” 

“I’m guessing you didn’t have any visitors last night, then?” 

“No, I didn’t. How’s your Ryan?” 

Tom laughs but it sounds off. “He’s as normal as he can manage to be.” 

“Have you talked to…” 

“No,” Tom says without making him finish. “I think he just needs some space right now.” 

Sean sets his laptop aside and lies in his bed, looking up at the ceiling. “Right.” 

Tom still doesn’t ask about what’s going on between the two of them. He’s got to know that it has to be more than just the ghost shit, but he doesn’t ask. Sean would probably tell him if he did ask. He has a habit of talking about something to unload it, spread the weight around, but telling Tom about how he and Ryan almost fucked and are sort of maybe in love with each other just defeats the whole purpose of Sean trying to protect anything. 

“When do you want to do this?” Tom asks. 

“In a couple hours? It doesn’t matter; ghosts aren’t limited to a certain time.” 

“Alright, I’ll be over there soon.” 

Sean hangs up with Tom and then goes to take a shower and change his clothes because he hasn’t done that in a while and it makes him feel human again. Before Tom comes over, he tries to summon a spirit to him again. He talks to them, tells them about Nick and how he’s looking for him, for wherever he’s at. Again, no one responds to him. What shitty, rotten luck that he’s been cursed with this ‘gift’ in his life and, when he actually needs it, it decides to shit out on him. 

Tom arrives soon enough. He’s driving Ross’ rental, but Ross isn’t with him. “Where to first?” Tom asks. 

“I wanted to go to that park where the girl was killed.” 

“This shit is pretty fucking morbid.” 

“Yeah. Do you know how to get there?” 

Sean figures the park is a good place to start. The girl was distraught, probably not the kind of ghost to just accept that she died. She’s the kind who acts out, gains legends and attention, and wants to get revenge for her death. She’ll probably still be in the place she died, maybe hoping that her killer will come back again. 

Tom parks in the dirt-packed lot and they get out of the car. To Sean’s surprise, Tom brought a camera along with him. “Don’t look at me like that. It might come in handy,” Tom says. Sean doesn’t fight him on it. It helps the two of them look like they’re wandering around the city with a purpose, at least. They walk to the center of the park and Tom snaps a few pictures of a fountain. “Now what?” he asks. 

“Now we see if I feel anything.” He closes his eyes and tries to focus. He likes to imagine pushing waves out from his mind, reaching out to find anything that’s there. He can’t find anything at first glance. He’s too aware of Tom next to him, watching him. He’s got his eyes closed, but he hears the click of Tom’s camera and wonders if Tom is taking pictures of him. 

“Hello?” Sean says quietly. Even though he’s with Tom, he still doesn’t like the idea of talking to spirits in public. “Is anyone out there? Anyone I can talk to? Does anyone need help? I’m here. Please, just come to me.” 

He waits. The sounds of the park darken for him and all he can hear is his and Tom’s mingled breathing. The minutes of silence stretch on long and, with each second without feeling a spirit’s presence, Sean’s hope dies piece by piece. 

“Maybe somewhere else?” Tom asks. 

Sean finally does open his eyes and nods. “We could. There’s an old hotel I remember seeing a lot of ghosts hanging around at.” 

“Spiritual hotspots,” Tom says.

They drive to the hotel. There aren’t any spirits hanging around outside, but it might be because there’s construction taking place outside of the hotel. Spirits aren’t much different than the living, so Sean can see why they wouldn’t want to hang around a bustling, noisy area. 

“I’m not getting anything here,” Sean says. Tom frowns next to him, but starts the car. 

The next spot is outside the city, an old asylum that Sean found while surfing around on the internet. He’s never been there, but he figures it’s worth a shot. 

“An asylum? These are the worst clichés,” Tom says. “Maybe the ghosts are just snubbing us. No humans allowed.” 

“I doubt it,” Sean says. “I’m apparently the only one in the whole state who can talk to them. They need me.” 

“You could always try to talk to Ryan’s spirit again?” 

“It came to me last time, but it’s pretty weak. Who knows how long it will take it to be able to take him over again?” 

“Speaking of Ryan, do you mind if I talk to you about him?” 

“Sure, is something going on? Are you two, like, official?” 

Tom shrugs and he frowns at the steering wheel. “I’m not sure.”

“You spend a lot of time with him.” 

“Yeah. I like it. I like him a lot, actually.”

Sean turns from where he’s looking out the window to Tom. “Then what’s the problem?” 

“He’s not over Jon.” 

Sean isn’t surprised. He’s going to judge Tom’s observational skills if he never noticed that fact. “You don’t say?” 

“Don’t be an asshole,” Tom says. “I thought he came here because he wanted to see me. I thought he was staying here all this time because he liked being around me, but now, I think it’s just because he misses Jon and I’m as close as it gets.” 

“He can still like you and miss him.” 

“But can he be in a relationship with me if he’s still hung up on Jon?” Sean doesn’t know. At this point, he thinks he’s probably the least qualified person to give advice on a healthy relationship. “I was there the first time they met, you know?” Tom says. “I wasn’t with Jon anymore, but I still recognized that look in his eyes – complete adoration. Ryan was easy to read. It was obvious they were connecting. I didn’t know he was still – ” 

Tom stops himself and looks out his own window. Sean thought that Tom wasn’t heavily involved in Ross as something serious, but this reaction is proving otherwise. 

“Not everyone can get over Jon as fast as you did, Tom.” They dated when they were younger. Sean didn’t really hang out with either of them back then, but he knows the story, knows it was an amicable ending, and he and Jon have been just as close ever since. 

“Jon left because of their break-up. It was hard on him, too,” Tom says. He taps his hands against the steering wheel. “He went to do some soul-searching and meanwhile Ryan is tearing himself up with a broken heart in L.A. What happens when Jon comes home? That’s what I’m afraid of. I like Ryan. I want to be with him, but I don’t want to be the second choice.” 

“Maybe you should tell him that? That’s my advice. Just tell the truth.” If there is anything Sean learned during this back-and-forth with Ryan, it's that being honest right away is probably the best thing you could do. 

“I don’t even think he means it,” Tom says. “He doesn’t mean to still be hung up on Jon. I don’t even think he wants it. I think he wishes he didn’t feel like that at all, but the fact is that he still loves him deep down. I don’t fucking blame him, but I think I’m falling for him, Sean. Either way, someone is getting hurt.” 

“Does he know Ryan’s here?” 

“No, he’s too busy sending me pictures of his neighbor’s cat and battling hermit crabs. Besides, I don’t want to know what he has to say about it.” 

They settle into silence again. Sean almost tells Tom about him kissing their Ryan, but if he gets pissed, he doesn’t want to be trapped in a car with him for that long so he stays quiet. At least with Tom talking about his love life it cut some of the tension of the day, took their minds off their failures in ghost hunting so far. They reach the asylum shortly after that. Right away, Sean can feel something in the air. 

“I think this will be our lucky spot,” he says. The building is abandoned and there are no trespassing signs up outside, but no one ever listens to them, seeing as half the building’s walls are covered in graffiti. 

Tom and Sean walk around the building. Sean tries to see any spirits hanging around. When they reach the back of the building, they find a sprawling, makeshift cemetery. 

“Cool,” Tom says. He snaps a picture of the old, worn headstones that pop up from the dirt. 

It’s creepy as fuck, but they set up shop in the cemetery, sitting together on a little bench under a tree. Well, Sean is sitting. Tom is moving along the rows of headstones and reading them off. Most are too old to even have names engraved, just numbers. 

“Hey, Sean, if we do run into a ghost here, since they don’t live in the city, how much help do you think they’ll be?” 

He hadn’t considered that. Shit. “I think they all communicate. I imagine being dead means you’d jump on the first piece of gossip you heard.”

Sean tries to draw a spirit towards him while Tom takes picture. They sit there long enough that the sun begins to set. Sean doesn’t find much scary these days, but still, sitting at an abandoned insane asylum in the cemetery doesn’t rank on his list of things he likes to do. Tom is sitting with him now, having photographed as much as he could without going inside the building.

He’s on Sean’s laptop. He breaks Sean’s concentration by poking him in the side. “Hey, what is this?” 

“What?” Sean asks. 

“These lyrics: ‘ _Your first step feels like caving in._ ’ Did you write this for the album?” 

Sean balks because that’s the song that sparked a fire in him, the one he hid from Max when he offered his new batch of songs, the same one he wouldn’t let Ryan read when he snuck into Sean’s bed. He feels suddenly stripped and exposed under Tom’s gaze. His face is blank in the blue light beaming off the laptop’s screen. 

“Uh, yeah, it’s something.” 

“I like it,” Tom says. “Sounds like a keeper.” 

“Yeah?” 

He nods. “Have you shown Max?” 

“Not yet.” 

“You should.” 

Sean does like the song, but he can barely imagine singing it for Tom and Max, let alone singing it live. “I don’t think we’re going to get anything tonight,” Sean says. He's eager to change the subject. “Maybe we should head back?” 

Tom closes Sean’s laptop. “Yeah, probably. Did you want to try another spot?” 

“No,” Sean sighs. “I’m not sure what to do. Maybe wait for one of them to come to me?” 

Sean and Tom tromp back through the small graveyard and around the building back to the car. A small, terrifying thought worms its way into the corner of Sean’s mind. What if, because he had been resisting his power and the spirits, it weakened his skill? What if it isn’t something that sticks with him, like a natural-born talent? What if it’s more like something he has to hone and keep sharp for it to even exist? It’s suddenly clear and scary to him just how much about his own power he doesn’t know. 

“I want to stop somewhere before I drop you off,” Tom says once they reach the city. Sean doesn’t press about where to go. He doesn’t even feel like going home. Lately, he doesn’t like being alone in his apartment. It reminds him of all the mistakes he’s made. 

Where they end up is a hotel downtown. Tom parks in the garage. “Is this where Ross is staying?” Sean asks. 

“Yeah.” 

“What are we doing here?” 

“I just want to see something.” That’s all the explanation Tom offers as they board the elevator to Ross’ floor. Tom must know this place like the back of his hand because he doesn’t miss a beat all the way to Ross’ room. Instead of knocking, he gets his phone out and taps out a text. 

“Really?” Sean says. 

Tom shrugs. “He likes me to do that.” 

Seconds later, the door opens and Ross is standing there, tucking his own phone away. “Glad to see you’re telling the truth this time,” he says to Tom. 

Sean looks at Tom, who’s smiling all wide and idiotic. “Sometimes, I fuck with him and tell him I’m outside when I’m not.” 

“When you said you needed to borrow my car, I didn’t think you meant all day,” Ross says, moving aside so that Tom and Sean can come in. 

“That was my fault,” Sean says. 

Ross smiles. “Well, that’s okay, then.” 

Tom has got his camera out again and he’s messing with it. “You’re so much nicer to my friends.” 

“That’s because I like your friends.” 

Tom laughs and snaps a picture of Ross, catching him off-guard. Ross looks completely unsurprised that he’s become a subject of Tom’s pictures. Tom stalks over to Sean and curls his hand over Sean’s shoulder, his fingertips touching Sean’s neck. He uses his free hand to wield his camera. “I have good taste, what can I say?” Tom says before he snaps another picture of Ross. 

“Do you want a beer?” Ross asks, while he ignores Tom. He shakes one in Sean’s direction. 

Sean accepts and drinks half of it in one go. With the room settled, he can see Ross better now – and he can still see Ross’ attached spirit, glowing brighter than it was the other day, so Sean figures it’s getting stronger, that, if it comes down to it, he can try and draw this spirit from Ross to talk to him again. 

“We just came to say hi,” Tom says. “I gotta get Sean here home.” 

“Are you going to come back after?” Ross asks.

Sean drains the rest of his beer and sets the bottle on the table in the room. He glances at Tom. His face is blank and easy. His mouth curls up at one end. “If you’re lucky.” 

Ross rolls his eyes. “Nice seeing you again, Sean.” 

“You, too.” 

On the elevator ride back downstairs, Sean looks at Tom. “You wanted to check on him.” 

“I wanted to see if you could see his spirit.” 

“Oh?” 

“Yeah, so?” 

“I did. It still wasn’t as strong as the night it took him over.” 

“But it’s getting stronger? That’s a good thing, right?” 

“Yeah, always good to have a fallback.” 

Back at home, Sean has one more idea on how to bring the spirits to him. He pulls out the bottle of hard liquor in the back of his fridge, shit that Ryan likes, and sits on his couch with the bottle in his lap, drinking from it. Right after tour, the spirits got into his room because they said he had lowered defenses when he was fall-down drunk. He’s not sure how much getting shitfaced will help him now, but it certainly can’t hurt him. 

He gets drunk and feels like shit about himself. He hates that he let all this shit happen – he let Ryan slip away, let people get hurt. He knows that he shouldn’t blame himself, but right now, he wants to wallow, so he does. He sits there and hates himself – maybe that’ll work. He and the spirits can find common ground on how much they both hate him. 

Sean passes out on the couch with the bottle on the floor next to his head. The couch makes him miss Ryan. When he wakes up, he’s gained nothing but a hangover. “You fucking ghosts better not even try to talk to me next time on tour,” Sean says to no one as he rolls off the couch. 

He finds his phone in the kitchen, abandoned there since last night. He has texts from Tom and Max. Tom’s text is a picture and, when Sean opens it, he recognizes the hotel room from last night. It’s a picture of Ross, one of the ones Tom took while Sean was over there with him. It’s a nice shot (all of Tom’s shots are nice), but he doesn’t know what it means. 

' _Cool shot._ '

' _No, I was checking out the shit I took last night and I can see the spirit, too. I wanted to test that last night. If I take a picture while touching you, it lets the camera see what you see. Cool, right?_ '

It is cool, but Sean isn’t in the mood for it, so he doesn’t text back. He checks Max’s text and groans at what he reads. _Tom told me you had something to show me. Meet me at 2?_

He glances at the clock in the kitchen. That’d be an hour from now. Sean feels like crap, but he doesn’t feel like staying home, either. He thinks too much when he’s alone, especially now. He grabs up his jacket and his shit, pops a few aspirins, and then heads over to Max’s place. 

“You look like shit,” Max says instead of a ‘hello.’ 

“I tried an experiment involving ghosts and my liver. It didn’t work.” 

Max takes up his usual seat at his computer. “What have you got for me?” 

“A potential song.” Sean opens his laptop and hands it off to Max. 

If he didn’t feel like total shit, he’d care more about Max reading the words he had been holding so close to his heart. He kind of wishes Max drank so at least he could share his hangover remedies with Sean. Still, Sean’s stomach flips around because the song is different; it almost felt like it wasn’t even him writing, like he was just the conduit for the words to the paper. 

Max finally looks at him and grins. “I think it’s fucking awesome.” 

“Yeah?” Max nods. “Cool,” Sean says. 

“But can I point something out, man?” Max adds a moment later. 

“You know you can. I’m all ears.” 

Max chews on his lip, like he’s deciding how to word what he wants to say. He goes over the lyrics again and then scratches a hand through his curls, “You know this song is about Ryan, right?” 

Okay. Well, Sean wasn’t expecting _that_. “You…what?” 

“Well, I just think it is,” Max says. “Far be it from me to tell you what you’re writing about, but this feels like…I don’t know, it feels like Ryan.” 

It’s not surprising, not really. Sean’s kind of always know who the song was about, even if he didn’t want to admit it. It’s why he didn’t want to share it with anyone. It’s too obvious, too clearly a subject that’s close to Sean’s heart. 

“It’s kind of obvious something happened. He’s not saying shit and you’re not saying shit, but that doesn’t mean Tom and I still don’t see shit.” 

Max is the youngest out of them, but Sean is always forgetting that. Max has a way of talking to them like he has years of life experience beyond any of them. 

“Something happened,” Sean says, “and it’s my fault. I don’t know how to fix it.” He can’t even look at Max; he keeps his eyes glued to the floor. If he had to share the song, then he wants it to be enough. He wants the song to tell the story for him if he must tell it at all. 

“If the song is too personal, we don’t have to – ” 

“I think I want to,” Sean says. “Use it, I mean.” 

“We can record it after we find Nick.” 

Even music isn’t safe from the reality of the situation. Sean still has to find Nick, somehow. 

***

Sean goes home and tries to sleep off his hangover. He can’t fall asleep, though. He’s thinking about Ryan again. Max and Tom have got to know that whatever happened between Sean and Ryan was about more than friendship. They don’t know more than the pieces Sean’s given them in lyrics or their own drawn conclusions, but the fact is that they know. They know and they’re okay with it. 

All this time, Sean was protecting the band because he was afraid they wouldn’t understand. He sacrificed himself for the music and he didn’t need to…he never did. All he needed was to be honest with himself, with his friends. He could be with Ryan. The thought aches in his chest as much as it also warms him. Maybe it’s not too late to apologize. Maybe it isn’t too late to be with Ryan in the way they both desperately wanted. 

Lying here alone in his bed, he isn’t afraid to admit that he does love Ryan. He has for a long time, just under the surface. The only thing holding him back was ever fear and himself. He wants to go back, back to when he first kissed Ryan, and then never stop, or he wants to go back to the second time they kissed and stop himself from saying anything. 

Right now, he wants to call Ryan, text him, beg him to come over so that he can apologize, can make it right. If he has Ryan back, the rest seems easy. He holds his phone in his hands and thumbs over Ryan’s name in his phone, debating whether or not to send a message. What would he even say? ‘I’m sorry,’ for one; that he made a mistake, that now he wants him when everything is broken and it’s already far too late to say that now he isn’t scared, that now he’s ready. 

He falls asleep before he can decide whether or not to text Ryan. 

***

When Sean wakes up, he feels better. He still wants to text Ryan, but he still doesn’t know what to say. He gets up, takes a shower, eats breakfast, and tries to summon the spirits to him. It still doesn’t work, but he keeps trying. Maybe, if he puts a constant signal out there, he’ll get something back. 

His phone rings around noon. Sean has a spike of wild excitement that it might be Ryan, that maybe he wants to reach out before Sean does. It isn’t Ryan, though. It’s Tom. Despite the disappointment edging up the back of his throat, Sean answers. 

“Hey, Tom.” 

“Hey.” It’s only one word, but Sean notices that Tom sounds off. 

“Is everything alright, Tom?” 

He’s expecting a ‘no,’ expecting Tom to launch into his latest problems with Ross. 

“I don’t really know how to tell you this, Sean,” Tom says, and now Sean is getting scared because he doesn’t sound right at all. He sounds upset, sad, not at all like Sean is used to. 

“Tom, whatever it is, just tell me…” 

“Sean, Ryan called me today. He... He left the band, man.” 

In one small second, Sean’s stomach drops and his whole world cracks around him. “What?” He’s not even aware he’s talking, just words, his body running on autopilot. “Tom, what?” 

“He said he couldn’t do it anymore. All the shit with Nick and – ” Tom stops himself, but Sean finishes it for him. 

“And me.” Ryan left the band because of him. 

“No one said that,” Tom says. “Don’t do that to yourself.” 

“Fucking Christ, he couldn’t even tell me himself?” Sean rests his hand on the counter in his kitchen. He feels sick to his stomach. It isn’t that he isn’t used to losing people, but after Al, they all made a promise to each other: they’d never back out, at least not without trying to fix it. Sean broke them so much that Ryan felt like he couldn’t even stick around to fix it. Ryan left because of Sean, because of how he is, because of the things he’s done. 

“This is hard for him, too, I guess. I don’t think he wanted to hurt you or any of us.” 

Tom’s practically a veteran at this, but his words don’t make Sean feel any better. He’s hurting, a solid ache up his chest. He thought they could get better, he thought they _would_. He thought he could make it up to Ryan and they’d all just go back to how they were before. That clearly wasn’t what Ryan wanted and, now, without the band tying them together and with all the hurt between them, there’s a very real chance that he’ll never get the chance to apologize to Ryan at all. 

“He Tweeted it,” Tom says. “Just thought you should know that, too.” 

So everyone knows. It hurts to know that they’ll hurt, too, but it hurts worse for him because it feels too final. Telling the band is one thing – telling the world makes it more tangible in a way to Sean. 

“I’ve got to go,” Sean says. 

“Okay,” Tom says.“We’ll be okay, Sean. We always are.” 

Sean doesn’t think he’ll ever be okay. He paces his living room. He wants to scream and cry and punch Ryan in the face as much as he wants to apologize to him. How can Ryan just go? How can he walk away from what he helped create? Their new songs, the plans they made…he feels like an idiot. He fought against his feelings to protect the band, to make sure it stayed intact, and despite his efforts, he still lost both of them in the end – the band, as he loved it, and the man that he loved. 

***

After Ryan leaves the band, Sean doesn’t know what to do. He knows it means they pick up and move on. They’ll figure out who will record the rest of Ryan’s drum parts on the songs they’ve yet to put down and who will tour with them. He’s not ready for that yet, though; he can’t picture someone else with them. 

He ignores music after that. Everything is up in the air. He still writes, but he hates it all. Without music and without Ryan, he focuses on bringing the spirits back to him. He considers calling the police; he probably should no matter what kind of trouble that might put him in. Nick’s been missing for five days now and Sean’s starting to think he can’t do this on his own. 

A few days pass by. He’s taken to walking around the city late at night, trying to feel anything, any sign that he’s going in the right direction. He never does find it. It drives him insane to know the man and Nick and all the other victims could be right under his nose, but he’s helpless to do anything. He finds books on spirits and reads them. He never felt the need to before, but he’s desperate for any kind of solution. He hasn’t been talking to anyone, either – not on purpose, but he doesn’t want to talk about Ryan or Nick or what happens to their album or if he has an idea for whom he wants to replace Ryan. He thinks that they’re just giving him space, but he also thinks that they just don’t know how to help. He almost hopes that Tom or Max could figure this out without him.

Finally, late into the night, when Sean is sitting on his bedroom floor, he feels something behind him. When he turns around, there’s a young man standing behind him. Sean is up in a flash. “Oh, my God, finally! Don’t leave, please. I need to talk to you.” 

“I won’t leave,” the man tells him. “It’s not like I have a better place to be.” 

“Do you know what’s going on in the city? Do you know about the man who’s kidnapping people?” He bites his lip. He looks young, barely twenty at most. “Did he kill you?” 

“No,” the ghost says, “and I do know about the man, but we’re not supposed to say anything.” 

“Not supposed to say anything? You ghosts were practically begging me to solve this case for you and now you’re silent? Is that why you’ve all been ignoring me?” 

“There aren’t many rules in our world, but there is one that applies to this situation: only the ghost of a person who died at his hands can tell you where he is.” 

“What the fuck? That doesn’t make sense. The spirit that told me about it had nothing to do with the man.” 

The male ghost shrugs. “Some don’t follow the rules, even in death.” 

“So you’re not going to tell me shit? You all come to me when you need something, but when I need your kind for once, you ignore me?” 

“Even if we came to you, we wouldn’t have been able to give you what you wanted.”

“Then tell one of the victims to come see me. Tell them I need to talk to them.”

“If they’re not comfortable with you, then they won’t come.” 

“One of my friends is in trouble! I don’t have time for them to get comfortable. I need to know where he is, even just his name. Please.” Sean knows it might be stupid to plead to a ghost, but it’s all he has to go on. “I want to get justice for them, too.” 

“I can try,” the ghost says. “All I can tell you is that I’ll try to bring one of them here. I don’t know if they’ll come, but I’ll tell them you want to help.” 

If that’s the best deal Sean can get, then he’ll take it. He just needs Nick and the others to hang on long enough for him to be able to find them. Sean blinks once and then the ghost is gone without another word. He can only hope that this spirit will come through for him. It feels strange for the roles to be reserved, to be helpless and need the assistance of someone who either won’t listen or won’t help even when they can hear you. He suddenly feels like shit for all the times he was unable or unwilling to help the ghosts. 

On the third day of his radio silence and not leaving his apartment, Tom and Ross show up. “So you are alive in here. We were worried, you know? Sending a text isn’t too hard, is it?” 

“Sorry,” Sean says. He moves aside to let them in. “I’m so goddamn frustrated.” 

“No luck?” Tom asks without making it obvious what they’re talking about. As far as Ross knows, they’re just talking about losing a piece of the band. Sean shakes his head. Tom looks back at Ross and tilts his head towards the bathroom. Tom wraps an arm around Sean’s shoulders and leads him to his bathroom, away from Ross. “Look, I get it. That’s why I’m here now. I brought him because I think you can try to talk to his spirit. Just don’t argue,” Tom says. “Take a shower and we’ll sort this shit out.” 

“A spirit came to me last night, actually, but it was no fucking help. Apparently, they have a code or something.”

“But Ryan’s still talked to you?” Tom asks. 

“Yeah, I guess it doesn’t care for the rules.”

“Then you can talk to it again?” 

“I don’t know how to get it to talk to me first without freaking Ross out.” 

“Maybe we should tell him?” 

“Are you serious, Tom? How would we do that? I don’t want to be responsible for alerting him to the fact that he has a spirit living inside of him.” 

“Just take a shower and we’ll figure it out,” Tom says. He slips from the room so that Sean can take a shower. He probably looks a mess. He hasn’t been showering or shaving, hasn’t been eating as much as he should. It’s a poor choice of words, but he almost feels like a ghost in his own life. He’s just kind of been there while the world spun around him. 

He feels better once he’s out of the shower. He finds clothes stacked on top of the toilet that Tom must’ve brought in the room. He dresses and then meets Tom and Ross out in the living room. They’re sitting together on the couch, stuck in the dip the same way that Sean and Ryan used to sit. Ross’ leg is hooked over Tom’s. 

“Hey, I was just telling Ross about all those missing people cases in the city,” Tom says, “and about Nick.” 

“That’s really scary shit,” Ross says. 

“Yeah,” Tom says. He looks at Sean, like Sean should be picking up on a cue here. He must want Sean to try and draw the attached spirit from Ross. It’s true that it’s looking stronger than ever, but he doesn’t know where to even start. He goes and sits next to Tom on the couch when an idea comes to him. He touches his fingertips to the back of Tom’s hand. Tom raises an eyebrow at him and Sean tilts his head towards Ross. 

Tom follows his gaze and gasps a little before recovering. He must be able to see Ross’ spirit now. Ross gives them a funny look, but Tom recovers, probably because he saw it first in the picture he took, dissected it through his lens of the world. 

“I wish we could help find those people,” Tom says, nudging Sean. 

“Yeah,” Sean says. “I’d do anything to be able to find them and help them.” 

Ross nods, but nothing changes. He doesn’t feel the prickling on his arms and the back of his neck like the night the attached spirit took Ross over. Tom glances at him and Sean shakes his head. 

“We need help,” Tom says. 

“Well, it’s kind of the police’s job,” Ross says. 

“Yeah, but if we knew anything at all about where to find them, we could do our own part.” 

“That’s honorable,” Ross says, and that’s it. He doesn’t change, doesn’t get taken over. Tom looks between the two of them and then sighs. 

“I’m going to go have a smoke.” 

He gets up and goes out to the balcony, leaving the door mostly closed, save for a tiny crack of space. Sean and Ross are still on the couch with the awkward, empty space between them. Ross looks at Sean and smiles. Sean tries to return it. 

“It might not be my place,” Ross says a few minutes later, “but if Ryan isn’t talking to you guys right now, I think he probably will soon. When my band…well, when both my bands were falling apart, I didn’t talk to anyone I’d left for a long time afterward.” 

He means well, but the thought that Ryan won’t talk to them for months sours his stomach. Sean scratches at the stubble on his chin. “It was pretty surprising.” 

“That hurts, I know it does. That’s what happened with Jon. I mean, I knew things were getting shitty, but I didn’t know he felt like he couldn’t tell me about how he was feeling, how he took it upon himself to announce that we were on a break.” 

Sean doesn’t know what to say because he barely knows Jon’s side of this. Tom is the one who knows, but Ross probably hasn’t talked to him about this subject. Ross’ eyes are all heavy and sad. Sean knows Tom’s right in thinking that Ross isn’t over the loss of Jon. He’s supposed to be trying to pull Ross’ spirit from him, but instead he feels like he’s looking into a mirror of sorts, a lost man who is hurting the same way Sean is now, reflecting a bitter truth right back at him. The difference is that Ross is trying to push through, to move on, and Sean is wallowing in it. 

“Does it ever fucking feel any better?” Sean asks. 

Ross glances at him and then at the balcony door, where Sean can make out Tom’s back facing them. “Sort of,” Ross says. “If you’re lucky.” 

Ross’ spirit never comes and he and Tom leave for the night, though not before Tom makes Sean promise to text him at least once a day so he knows he hasn’t died in his apartment or some shit. Now they’re down to one option. The ghost needs to bring back one of the man’s victims just long enough that Sean can get some information from it. 

Through some stroke of good luck or the universe finally deciding to give him a fucking hand, Sean’s woken up by the icy chill of spirits in his bedroom. It’s late, four or five in the morning, and Sean’s room is too dark to see them well, but he can make out two figures standing near the end of his bed. 

“You came back,” he says, his mouth sloppy with sleep. Sean reaches over and clicks his bed side lamp on. He can see them better now. The same male ghost from the other night is standing there and with him is another male spirit, this one not much older than the first. 

“He’s the one who wants to catch the person who did this to you, Charlie,” the first male ghost says to the second. The one named Charlie looks at Sean with hesitation and Sean briefly wonders what sort of reputation he has in the spirit world. 

“I do. My name is Sean and I want to help.” 

“How can I help? I’m already dead. I can’t do anything.” 

“That’s not true.” Sean stands from his bed. He’s taller than both of these ghosts. “You can tell me where he lives and where he kept you and the others. Do you know his name?” 

“I’m not sure,” Charlie says. “It’s hard to remember now.” 

“Just try. A lot of people’s lives are depending on this.” 

“Not mine, though,” Charlie says suddenly. “No one was there to save me.” 

“I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry no one could save you, but I have a friend who’s been taken just like you were. You could help him and so many others. You’re the only one who can.” 

Charlie closes his eyes. “I remember it being really quiet. It was a long drive from where he took me. I couldn’t see while he drove. He told me that I’d love my new home and my new family. He didn’t even mean for me to die. He didn’t know I was sick or that I needed my meds and, without them, I’d die. He hates when people die because he loses a member of his ‘family.’ He wants to keep us all forever.” 

Sean shivers at the story, his stomach rolling with the idea of Nick being trapped with a psycho like that.

“After I died, I went back to the house because I wanted to take my revenge, but the others – ” Charlie looks at the other ghost next to him. “ – the others told me not to because, if I hurt him, then no one might ever find these humans.” 

“Tell me how to get there,” Sean says, “and I promise you’ll have your revenge.” 

Charlie nods and then tells Sean the address – or what he thinks is the address – of the place where the man lives, the place where Nick is being held. Sean’s blood is on fire. He wants to go now, run there and find them, save them all, and beat the shit out their captor, but he knows he can’t. He shouldn’t go alone, for one thing; he needs a plan. 

“No name?” Sean asks. 

Charlie shakes his head. “I never heard it.” 

“How many people were there with you? Where were you being held? Do you know if there was someone there named Nick?” 

“I don’t remember. There were a lot of people; he could never get enough. I don’t remember anything else.” 

“Do you have enough now?” the first ghost asks. “We need to leave.” 

“I think I do. If I ask for you to come back again, will you come?” Sean asks. He doesn’t think he’ll need anything else, but he likes to know he’ll have this ace in the hole if he needs it. 

Charlie nods and Sean smiles at them. “Thank you. You don’t know what you’ve done.” 

The ghosts don’t say anything, but Sean can feel a change in the air in the room. It feels lighter, better, like Charlie feels as relieved as Sean does. After the ghosts are gone, Sean can’t go back to sleep. He wants to call Tom, but he knows he’ll have to wait at least four hours for that, maybe three hours for Max. Ryan, though – Ryan could be awake. He’d want to know about Nick. 

Despite their lack of communication, Sean finds his phone and sends Ryan a text. Safety of their friend trumps the anger between them, he figures, and he tells him that he knows where Nick is, that he’s going to go and save him. He sends it off with nervous fingers. Honestly, he’s expecting a reply back, but a minute slips by and then two, three, and after five minutes, Sean thinks maybe Ryan is just asleep and he’ll text Sean when he wakes up. He wouldn’t ignore news like that, no way in hell. 

Against his better judgment, he decides not to involve the police right away. He still can’t explain how he knew where the house was and, maybe selfishly, he thinks that this is something he has to do, not completely alone but not with the police force, either. 

He goes out to his living room and turns on the news, lying down on the couch and watching for any stories about the man he’s going to see today. Sean falls asleep an hour into the news when the reports start to repeat. The next time he wakes up, it’s nine in the morning and, with barely-opened eyes, he calls Tom. 

Tom sounds like he’s sleeping, too, when he picks up with a grunt instead of a ‘hello.’ 

“Tom, listen, you need to come over here now. I got it. I know where he is.” 

“You fucking serious?” Tom drawls, his voice thick with sleep. 

“Yes, I’m going to call Max. Just get over here.” 

“Yeah, fuck, okay. I’m on my way.” 

Tom hangs up and Sean calls Max. Tom must have been filling Max in because Sean doesn’t have to explain much to him, just that he knows where Nick is and that he needs to come over. Now that the time is closer to when they’ll go and do this, Sean’s heart is beating quickly in his chest. He won’t make Tom and Max do this with him if they don’t want to. After hanging up, he realizes that Ryan never texted him back. It’s weird and a little upsetting that he won’t even talk to Sean when it has to do with truly important shit. It only confirms for him that Ryan intends on never speaking to him again. 

Tom gets there first, yawning with a cup of coffee in his hand and Ross’ rental keys hanging off his thumb. He takes a sip of coffee and drops down on Sean’s couch. “The spirit world finally taking your calls?” he asks. 

“Yeah, I guess so. I got his address, but I’m not sure where it’s at, exactly.” Sean goes and gets the slip of paper he’d written the address down on and hands it off to Tom. 

“I know where this is,” Tom says. “Not too far from the city. This creepy fuck has been this close all along?” 

“The ghost said he’s got a lot of people,” Sean says. 

“Should we be worried? I mean, do you think we should get officials involved?” 

“I don’t know. I think…well, I was thinking that it’s something we’d just do, but it _is_ dangerous.” 

“No shit. We’re going to need a fucking good plan.” 

Max shows up not long after Tom, looking more awake than Tom did. “So,” he says, “what’s the plan?” 

Sean gives him the address. Max isn’t familiar with the area, so they have to rely on Tom for that one. The three of them sit on the couch together. It almost feels complete, if not for the aching spot that should be sitting to Sean’s left. 

“Have either of you talked to Ryan? Told him we know where Nick is?” 

Max shakes his head. “I called him but no answer.” 

“Speak of the devil,” Tom says, holding his phone up. “He called me late last night while I was sleeping.” 

“What? What time?” 

“Three-thirty. He left me a voicemail.” Tom holds the phone to his ear to listen to the message. Three-thirty? Sean sent him a text around five. He doesn’t mind who gets to be the one to tell Ryan the good news, but he just wishes Ryan wouldn’t completely ice him out. 

Tom makes a face at his phone. “Huh?” 

“What is it?” Max asks. 

“The message is weird. I think he pocket dialed me. I can’t really hear a lot, there’s someone talking in the background.” Tom listens to it again and hums. “Sounds like he was driving. Listen,” Tom says. He plays the message again over speakerphone. 

The message is mostly idle silence, the static-y kind where you know you’re waiting for something. In the background, Sean can hear the dull roar of a car and then, near the middle to end, he can hear a voice, a man’s voice, one that doesn’t sound like Ryan’s. He’s scared to hear it. Sean’s scared that Ryan pocket-dialed Tom while he was out hooking up with someone he met at a bar. Then he hears something that makes his blood run cold. He isn’t sure…it could be a leftover from last night’s conversation with Charlie and the other ghost. 

“Play it again, Tom,” Sean says, his voice a tight whisper. 

Tom gives him a funny look but plays the voicemail over again. Sean leans in to the speaker and listens, eyes closed. That second time, he hears it. He hears the voice of a man saying, “You’ll just love your new family.” 

Sean shoots out of his seat as realization strikes him like a bullet. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “No, no, fuck no!” 

“What? Sean, what?” Tom says. 

Sean can’t even talk, can’t even tell them, because he doesn’t want to believe it. He wants to be paranoid, to be hearing things, but inside, he knows. He knows what he heard and it’s not fucking good. 

“Damn it, no. I heard – on the voicemail, I fucking heard the same shit that the ghost told me his kidnapper said to him. You guys, fuck, I think…I think he’s got Ryan.” 

“How is that possible?” Max says. “Are you sure you heard it?” 

“I am sure. I fucking heard him say ‘you’ll love your family’ and that’s his whole thing. He’s a psychopath who’s afraid to be alone so he kidnaps people to make them his family and now, fuck, now he has Ryan.” 

Tom plays the message again and Sean can barely stomach listening to it. Tom has it pressed right to his ear so that he doesn’t miss a word. Sean knows he isn’t just hearing shit when Tom’s face pales. He gives the phone to Max for one final confirmation that Sean doesn’t need. It all makes too much sense. Ryan wanted to find Nick, he was frustrated with Sean, he went looking for the answers himself, and it looks like he fucking found them. 

Sean’s knees go weak. He feels dizzy and nauseous and he wants to cry and kill that man dead in his fucking tracks but he can’t _do_ anything. It’s one more thing that happened because of him and one more thing he couldn’t stop. Every time he gets one step ahead, the world knocks him three steps back. 

“We have to go,” Sean says. “We have to go now. Ryan’s there. We…I have to go fucking get him.” 

Tom stands up and grabs Sean’s shoulders, squeezing tight. “Stop, Sean. You’re no good to us freaking the fuck out. This is scary, yeah, it’s fucking infuriating and I’m pissed off too but we have to be fucking smart about this, okay?” 

“The call came at three-thirty,” Max says from the couch. His face is tipped down and Tom’s phone is in his hand. “Either Ryan managed to call Tom on purpose or his phone dialed it on accident. The call only ended because Tom’s voicemail cut off. By that time, he was in the guy’s car.” 

“Shit,” Sean says. “Fuck, no, last night after I got the information from the spirit, I texted Ryan and told him I knew where Nick was. What if that guy got his phone? What if he knows that someone knows where he’s at? What if he hurts them or moves them?” 

Tom squeezes Sean’s shoulders again. Sean tries to breathe. He’ll never fucking forgive himself if Ryan shows back up as a spirit. He shakes the thought from his head – he can’t. He doesn’t ever even want to imagine that. 

“We’ve got to go,” Sean says, his voice a whisper that only Tom catches. 

“I know, and we will, but I don’t think we can go in the daytime. It’s better at night. Did you want to involve the cops now?” 

“I want Ryan,” Sean says. “We’ll go there and, if things go to shit, we’ll call the cops.” 

It’s a shitty plan at best, but it’s what they decide on. It’s the hardest fucking thing in the world for Sean to have to wait until nightfall to go and save Ryan and Nick. The guilt weighs on him like bricks on his chest. It’s his fault. Ryan wouldn’t have gotten involved in any of this if he didn’t know anything about Sean’s power, if Sean had managed to keep him in the apartment. 

Tom and Max make Sean sit down while Tom goes out on the balcony to call Ross and ask him if he can borrow his rental for a while. Sean doesn’t open his mouth because he’s afraid he’s going to throw up. The dread in his stomach feels real and alive, like poison in his veins. Max pushes a hand through his hair and looks at Sean. 

“None of us knew this would happen.”

Sean shakes my head. “It’s still my fault. I could have stopped this.” 

“Don’t play with ‘what-if’s, Sean. They won’t help us now.” 

“If something happens to him, Max, I – ” 

“Nothing is going to happen. We’re going to go and we’re going to get him.” 

Max sounds so sure. He doesn’t even sound scared or gone to have a smoke to calm his nerves like Tom is doing right now while he talks on the phone. It reminds Sean of being a kid and how you were only ever truly afraid if your mom was afraid. Max isn’t afraid – or, at least, he’s not letting Sean see that he is – and that’s enough to light a tiny hope inside of Sean.

Tom slides back inside and pockets his phone. “I got the car.” 

“Okay,” Max says. “Now you need to tell us everything you know about this guy.” 

Sean tells them everything Charlie told him about the man. It’s not much, but it’s better that they’re all on the same page before this shit goes down. Around noon, Tom goes and gets lunch for them. Sean can barely eat. None of them are talking. He can’t stop thinking about Ryan, picturing him bound and gagged and trapped somewhere, wondering if they’ll come for him. It scares him to think he can’t just call Ryan, can’t just find him at Nick’s place or a bar and bring him here. 

“We need to be able to defend ourselves,” Tom says shortly before they leave. The sun is dipping low and, by the time they get to the house, it’ll be dark enough to provide cover. Sean thinks about every bad action movie he’s ever watched, most of them with Ryan, and how, in all those movies, the average guy becomes an ass-kicking machine. That’s not them. Tom isn’t suddenly going to know how to do karate and Max how to make homemade bombs or some shit. They need to be realistic. This guy could be armed, probably is, so they need to be, too. 

“Really, Tom? Because no one is going to think we're suspicious when you're carrying a fucking baseball bat around?”

Tom sets the bat against his shoulder. “I don't know about you, Max, but I don't plan on becoming one of Sean’s spirit buddies tonight.”

Max maps the address on his phone and they set out at dusk. Sean is scared. He’ll admit it because he doesn’t know what’s going to happen. His life feels so removed from everything it should be. He and Max and Tom and Ryan should be recording; they should be focusing on their new album and planning shows, not being held hostage and going on vigilante missions to save each other. 

“What we’re going to do is cause a distraction,” Max says. “If the guy is home, Tom and I will knock on his door and tell him we’re having car trouble and that our phones are dead. We’ll ask to use his. While we’re keeping him busy, Sean will try to find Ryan and the others.” 

Sean nods from his spot in the backseat, tucked up with a crowbar and Tom’s baseball bat. There are a million ways this could go wrong. Their cover could be blown; the guy could attack Tom or Max. They don’t know what he’s like, what he looks like. The closer they get, the more this feels like it's a bad idea, but it’s for Ryan and Nick and the others that are being held against their will. 

They get to the neighborhood. It’s night now, pitch-dark on the street the house is on, save for the dim streetlights on each corner. Tom flicks off the headlights and they drive past the house once. It’s stereotypical suburban, medium-sized with what looks like an upstairs and a basement. Even driving past the place makes Sean’s skin buzz with the same feeling he gets when the ghosts are around. Even if Charlie hadn’t known the exact house, Sean’s confident he could’ve found it just by feeling the amount of spiritual energy pouring off of it. 

There are lights on in the house; the main window, the basement window, and an upstairs room all look like they have lights on. Tom circles around and stops the car a few houses down. “He can’t see you,” Tom says. “You’ll have to get out here and find a different way in.” 

“Right,” Sean says. He slips from the car with the crowbar tucked into the sleeve of his jacket. He sneaks into the thick line of bushes that line each house in the neighborhood, the leaves rustling around him. He can hear himself breathing heavily, but he can’t think of anything except getting into the house. He trails around the back of the house two houses down from where Ryan and Nick are. The lights are all off in this one and Sean creeps around the back. There are no fences separating the yards, just the thick bushes creating a natural property line. 

From where he’s standing two houses down, Sean can see the backyard of the man’s house. The closer he gets, the more he can feel the energy. He’s come to find that, if there’s a place where a lot of deaths happened or the people who died there had heavy emotions attached to them, it stays with the building, crackling the energy around it. Here, Sean can feel anger and fear and sorrow. 

In the next yard, he can see when Max and Tom stop the car in front of the man’s house. Tom gets out and props the hood up. Sean’s heart is in his throat. Max joins him a few seconds later and they both pretend to be investigating under the hood. He moves to the next house, the psycho’s house, and there’s a back door behind the house, no windows except for the two basement windows on the side of the house. 

Sean leans against the back of the house and waits until he hears the distant sound of knocking on the front door. He can’t breathe, can’t move. Why are they doing this? They should’ve called the fucking cops. All he can think about is hearing a fight or gunshots and then knowing he’s lost everyone important in his life in one blow. The door opens and he can see the square of light reach out into the street and three long shadows stretching towards the car. He can hear Max asking about a phone and the same voice that told Ryan and Charlie and Nick that they’d love their new family inviting Tom and Max inside. 

He waits until the door closes and goes to the side of the house where the basement windows are, dropping to his knees in the damp grass, peering inside through the square of glass. The inside looks like a normal basement, shitty carpeting on the floor and concrete walls. There’s no one down here, or at least no one where he can see. Sean goes to the other side of the house, thankful for the heavy trees that hang over the part of the house, blanketing him in the dark. The other side of the basement doesn’t provide much. There are boxes down here, a washer and dryer, but then, in the very corner of the room, Sean thinks he can see what looks like the edge of a door. 

He tries the window and it’s locked, so he goes to the other side and that’s locked, too. Breaking it seems like a bad idea and a last resort, so instead, he goes to try the back door. There are small cement steps that lead to the door and Sean is careful and quiet as he climbs them. He has no fucking idea where this door opens up to. It could very well be right where Max and Tom are using the phone and then they’d all be caught. 

He reaches out carefully and tries the handle. It’s locked – of course it is. That means Sean has to break his way into the house. He goes back to the window, wondering how loud it would be if he broke the glass. He’s kneeling in the grass again, peering inside, when the air goes electric around him. 

“You made it,” a voice behind Sean says. Sean whips to his feet faster than he ever has before. He’s got the crowbar in hand – except it’s not the man from the house; it’s not even a human. It’s Charlie. 

“Why would you fucking do that?” Sean says. “I could’ve – ” 

“What?” Charlie says with a small smile. “Killed me?” 

“I don’t have time for ghost humor. I’m trying to get inside and save everyone without dying or getting anyone else killed.” 

“I can help,” Charlie says. 

Sean hadn’t thought of that. Finally, his power is coming in handy for something. “Do you know where they are?” Sean asks. “I thought they were in the basement but I don’t know where.” Charlie doesn’t answer. Sean turns to look at him, but he’s gone. When he turns back around, he sees Charlie in the basement, looking at him through the window. He blinks and Charlie is gone again, reappearing behind Sean once again. 

“There’s a room in the back. It’s hidden, but that’s where he keeps them.” 

“It has to be locked, otherwise everyone could get out.” 

From one of the windows above him, Sean can hear Tom’s loud, fake laugh. He swallows carefully. “Charlie, where does this back door open up to?” Sean asks. Charlie is gone without answering and, a half-a-minute later, he’s back again. 

“It opens up to the back of the kitchen. There’s another door straight from this one and through that door is the basement.” 

“Okay, listen, can you go up to the top floor and cause some kind of ruckus? Do something that will cover the sound of me breaking the lock off this back door? Something that will make the man go upstairs to check it out?” 

Charlie looks unsure, but he nods and then he’s gone. Sean crouches and makes his way to the back door. He steps up on the small porch and presses the crowbar to the handle. If he can bust it off, he can just push the door open and go from there. He waits with bated breath, hoping that Tom and Max can handle things on their end. He hopes he can do this. 

Sean suddenly hears a loud booming sound from the top of the house. It sounds like things are falling. Sometimes, if a ghost has a strong enough energy, it can possess a non-living item. Charlie wouldn’t be able to touch human items otherwise, but he can go into the item and make it move, make it fall. Sean can hear murmured voices and the creaking of stairs and that’s when he takes the opportunity to hit the lock with the crowbar. 

It’s harder than he thought, harder than it looks in the movies. The light upstairs flicks on and a square patch of light falls to the backyard, though it misses Sean. The sound of the crowbar on the handle is loud, though, and it’s at the point where he can’t turn back. He slams it again and again, channeling his anger into the strikes, all the frustration and pent-up rage he felt coming out until the lock loosens and then, with another hit, falls off. 

Sean glances up at the window above him. He can see a face looking down at him, seemingly looking right into him. It isn’t Charlie and it isn’t Max or Tom. It’s _him_. He’s not sure if the psycho can see him or not, but it looks like he can, like the wheels are clicking into place. Sean throws his shoulder into the door and it bursts open. He doesn’t look up to see if the face is still in the window or not. 

“Max! Tom! He saw me, he’s coming!” Sean shouts, though he doesn’t know where the other two are and if they can even hear them or if he just put them in more danger. Charlie was telling the truth because Sean is standing in a clean, white kitchen, a dark grey door in front of him that goes to the basement. He can hear footsteps above him. Sean tries to open the basement door, but that’s locked, too – thankfully, not by handle, but by a small hook at the top of the door. Sean practically tears it off the door and then wrenches the door open, taking the stairs as fast as he can without falling. 

“Ryan?” Sean shouts, his voice echoing around him. “Ryan!” 

The basement is bigger than it looked from outside, miscellaneous crap packed everywhere, and then, Sean hears feet above him again, pounding closer by, down here with him. “Sean?” He hears his name being called. He would recognize Ryan’s voice anywhere, even in this situation, where he’s running on all fear and adrenaline. 

“Ryan!” Sean follows the sound of the banging and finds the room Charlie told him about. In his haste to the door, Sean knocks over a few boxes. They tumble behind him, spilling their contents across the floor. Sean gets to the door and tries the handle. “Ryan!” 

“Who’s there?” Other voices say, voices Sean doesn’t know. “Help us! Please!” 

“Sean, is that really you?” That’s Nick this time. 

“Yeah, this goddamn door is locked.” 

“There’s a key!” someone yells. “On top of the frame!” 

Sean feels atop the door frame and there’s a heavy, old-fashioned key lying there. He grabs it just as he hears the basement door burst open. He has a feeling it isn’t Max and Tom. Sean fumbles with the key in his hurry to get the door open, but he finally fits it inside, unlocking it. He gets the door open and the first thing he sees are at least ten faces staring at him, blinking in the light, looking dirty and scared and more relieved than Sean’s ever seen anyone look before. 

Right in the front is Ryan. He’s got a black eye, but otherwise, he looks no worse for the wear. Sean smiles at him because he can’t help it. Even though they’re still in danger, he can’t help but stop and smile at Ryan because he’s _safe_. 

The reunion is short-lived, though, because the group turn their attention to Sean. “Are you with the police?” one of them asks. “Did you kill that man?” another yells. 

“No, I – ”

“Why did you break into my house and who told you that you were allowed to see my family?” a voice asks. Sean turns around. He’s face-to-face with the man. He’s not at all what Sean was expecting – someone deranged-looking and maybe strong, someone you’d expect to be able to steal away the ones you love. This guy, though, just looks like anyone, like someone you’d see on the street or in a restaurant or, even more terrifying, someone at one of their shows. He’s young, probably no older than Sean. He’s shorter than Sean, but he’s got more muscle than him. 

The people behind Sean let out scared noises, anguished sounds. “Sean,” Ryan breathes from behind him. Sean’s still got his crowbar. He doesn’t know where Max and Tom are, but this guy has a weapon of his own. He’s a holding a fire-poker in his hand and he brandishes it at Sean.

“These people aren’t your family,” Sean says, his voice shaking more than he likes. He holds his ground. “These are people you took, people whose lives you’ve ended or disrupted. That’s not a family.” 

“They are mine. You can’t have them.” He raises his poker in the air. 

“See, that’s where you’re wrong, because you fucked with my family and you hurt people I love.” 

The guy laughs at him and Sean grips his crowbar tighter. All he can think about right now is the fact that he can count the number of fights he's been in on one hand. The guy makes a move like he’s coming at Sean and Sean swings at him. It’s a bad move on his part because it leaves his arm open and it’s easy for the man to bring the poker down on Sean’s arm. He dodges enough to avoid getting his arm broken but, the pointed ends of the poker catches at Sean’s jacket sleeve, cutting in as Sean backs up. 

Sean switches arms and then lashes out again, quicker than before. He’s got a whole group of people behind him, but none of them are armed. None of them are in any position to fight with their captor. It’s just Sean and this man. The man isn’t expecting Sean’s speed, so he stumbles backwards, close to the foot of the stairs. 

The man is about to lunge at Sean, poker pointed straight at him, when Sean sees a baseball bat come out of nowhere and connect with the guy’s arm. He shouts in pain and surprise and drops the poker. Tom is standing there, bat still in his hands, looking every inch that Average Joe hero from the action movies. Tom swings again, aiming for what looks like his legs, but he misses, and – well, maybe Sean spoke too soon. 

The man stumbles in his urgency to get away from Tom and his bat, which gives Tom another chance. He rushes off the landing and swings squarely at the man’s stomach, hitting him there and knocking him backwards so that he falls over the boxes that Sean had knocked down when he ran down here. With the man down, Sean and Tom both stand above him, weapons in hands. 

Outside, there’s the sound of police sirens. Sean looks at Tom. “Did you guys call the cops?” 

“Yeah, right after you broke the lock,” Max says as he comes down the stairs. 

“Let’s get these people upstairs,” Tom says as he picks up the fire-poker. 

“You can trust us,” Max says. “The police are coming. You’ll all get to go home.” 

It all happens so fast that by the time Sean realizes that everything is going to be alright, it almost doesn't feel real. The guy that's evaded the police for so long was taken down by them? Just like that? He attributes it to luck, to something beyond his control. The ache in his arm calmly reminding him of how close to failure he came. 

Slowly, the people being held captive emerge from the room; there are men and women, teenagers, and some people as old as Sean’s parents. All in all, he thinks he counts almost twenty people. Ryan doesn’t go upstairs; he stands with Sean and ignores the man on the floor who’s groaning in pain. He fell badly against the boxes and Sean’s pretty sure he’s broken his ankle by the looks of it. He doesn’t feel bad. 

“I’m really confused about why the fuck you guys are here,” Nick says to Tom. 

Tom curls an arm around Nick’s shoulders and smiles at him. “It’s a long story, but it’s also a story you wouldn’t even believe. Better to just accept this and move on.” 

Tom takes Nick upstairs and then it’s just Ryan and Sean and the asshole on the ground. A strange thing happens, though. The air crackles around them again, and Sean looks up to see Charlie standing there – and not only him, but the girl from the paper and two other ghosts that Sean might have seen before, staring up at him from the street. They’re all in the basement and Sean knows these must be people who died at this man’s hands. 

“Hey, asshole,” Sean says. He grabs the man’s arm, tugging him so that he rolls on his side. The man shouts in pain and, yeah, he probably hurt his ankle. “I want you to see what you did.” Sean says. He wraps his hand around the man’s wrist. Sean’s not sure he’ll understand at first, but he does soon enough, because the second the ghosts look at him, he begins screaming bloody murder. 

“You hurt these people and now they’ll never rest. Every day for the rest of your life they’ll be there, watching you, making sure you’re never happy or at peace again, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” Sean says. Whether it’s true or not, he doesn’t know – not all ghosts want to hang around, seeking vengeance on the person who killed them – but it scares the man, sets the same kind of fear in him that his victims must have had, that Sean had when he thought Ryan and Nick might be dead, and that’s what Sean was after. He wants him to feel one fraction of the fear that the people he took felt, that their families felt. 

The cops arrive. They come downstairs to handcuff the man and the ghosts blink away one-by-one until they’re gone. “We have detectives upstairs that need to speak with you,” one of them tells Sean. He nods. He’ll go and explain what he can, but after the police take the man away, it’s just he and Ryan in the basement. 

It’s strange because he’s so fucking happy to see him again – they’re alive and okay and he wants to forget everything else that happened and just pick up where they left off when they were good together. 

“You found me,” Ryan says. 

“I never would’ve stopped until I did.” 

Ryan’s hands stroke Sean’s forearms, rest in the crooks of his elbows. There’s a lot to be said, but maybe right now isn’t the time for it. Sean leans down and pulls Ryan into a gentle hug. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if – ”

“You don’t have to worry about that now,” Ryan says into Sean’s shoulder. 

For a few long minutes, they hold each other because they can, because they’re here and they’re safe. When Ryan pulls back, Sean notices a splotch of red. He touches Ryan’s hand and Ryan turns his palm over. His left hand is bloodied, but as far as Sean knows, Ryan isn’t bleeding. 

“Sean,” Ryan says, “your arm.” Sean looks at his arm and sees the fabric of his jacket darkened with blood. 

“He must have cut me,” Sean says. The cut isn’t bad, barely bleeding, but he and Ryan still go upstairs to get treatment from the paramedics and talk to the cops. When they get on the lawn, there are more cop cars parked around the place than Sean’s ever seen in his life. Max and Tom are already talking to police officers and there are medical staff looking at the people who were downstairs in the basement. 

Sean has questions of his own, but he doesn’t think right now is a good time to ask them. Ryan ends up getting taken to the hospital for observation and they won’t let Sean go with him until he’s answered the questions they want him to answer. Tom winds up on the news, which he uses to plug the band, but in the end, Sean is sent to the hospital for the wound on his arm and all three of them are released some time after that. 

Sean’s arm is fine, just needs to be cleaned and bandaged. He can’t do much with it until the cut has healed up. Ryan finds him at the hospital and comes into his room. 

“How are you?” he asks. 

“Just a minor flesh wound. What about you?” 

“Slight bruising and dehydration,” Ryan says as he sits at the end of Sean’s hospital bed. “I don’t even think I can process what happened tonight.” 

“It’ll take a while. I can’t believe half the shit that happened this month actually happened.” 

Sean’s good hand is lying on the bed and he feels Ryan’s hand come to rest on top of it. He looks at their hands and then at Ryan. “You saved my life,” Ryan says. 

“It wasn’t even a decision that needed to be made. As soon as I knew he had you, nothing would’ve stopped me.” Ryan smiles at him. Sean has missed that smile more than he knew. “Look,” he says. “I’m sorry for – ” 

Ryan shakes his head. “I don’t want to talk about that. Not right now.” 

“Okay,” Sean says. 

Instead of replying, Ryan leans forward across the bed, his hand cradling Sean’s stubble-rough jaw, and he kisses him. It’s soft, quiet, and just what Sean needs. He isn’t afraid and he doesn’t stop them. Not this time. 

***

“Where do you want to go now?” Tom asks on the way back from the hospital. It’s well into the morning by the time they get out and none of them has had much sleep. Ryan and Sean are sitting together in the back of the rental car. Ryan looks at Sean and Sean smiles at him. 

“Sean’s place,” Ryan says. 

Tom must be tired because he doesn’t make a shitty remark – or maybe he’s just happy that all of them are back together again. Tom drops them off at Sean’s place and they walk upstairs together. “Are you hungry?” Sean asks. 

“I’m tired.” 

“Me, too. Let’s go sleep the next week away.” 

Ryan laughs, but something on his face changes; he looks a little off. “I don’t really want to be alone right now. Can I... sleep in your room?” 

“You don’t even need to ask, Ryan,” Sean says. He offers Ryan his good hand and leads him into his bedroom. Honestly, Sean doesn’t want to be alone, either, and he doesn’t want to let Ryan out of his sight. He only just got him back; he kind of just wants to hold him until it all feels real. 

They both strip down to t-shirts and boxers and lie together in Sean’s bed. Ryan looks as worn out as Sean feels now that he’s in Sean’s bed. He’s got the black eye and bruises on his arms, one just under his tattoo. Sean wants to ask and know about what happened to him, but he isn’t going to. He’s going to wait until Ryan wants to talk about it. 

Ryan’s hand finds Sean’s under the covers and he laces their fingers together. Sean rubs his thumb against the back of Ryan’s hand. Right now, it’s easy, and they’re both here, together. Eventually, they’ll have to talk about shit, about the band and what happened before he left it. It’ll need to be said, but not right now. 

***

Nick invites them out to dinner a week later. It’s a week of Sean and Ryan sharing a bed, holding hands, and kissing, tentative and shy. It reminds him of when he was a teenager and just started dating for the first time. He likes it even though he doesn’t know what they’re doing; maybe they’re re-learning how to be around one another again, how to be together beyond just friends and the beginning of something Sean would like to call a relationship. 

“Nick seems to have gotten over this whole thing pretty quick,” Tom says. 

“Big surprise, he’s wearing his survivor status like a badge of honor,” Max says. 

At dinner, Nick talks about how he was caught. “I was drinking,” Nick says. “He said he knew of this cool place he could get us into. I was way too blasted to drive, so he offered. I guess I’ll never do that again.” 

The story is already in the papers, all over the news. Some of the fellow abductees are like Nick, eager to tell their stories. Ryan hasn’t said a word about what happened to him. Sean wants to know, but not enough to press the subject before its time. 

It takes a few weeks for things to settle into the familiar. Sometimes, Ryan needs to sleep with the light on or can only sleep if he’s tucked back against Sean so that Sean’s knees are pressed into the backs of Ryan’s legs. This night is one of those nights. Ryan rolls on his back. Sean isn’t asleep yet, so he shifts so that they’re both laying comfortably, his hand on Ryan’s stomach. The idea is still surreal to him that he can have what he wants now. If Ryan will still take him, then he can have this. 

Ryan turns his head on Sean’s pillow so that he can meet Sean’s eyes. “Sean?” 

“Hm?” 

“I’m sorry, you know, for not telling you that I wanted out of the band.” 

Sean’s heart speeds up in his chest. He’s not sure he wants to talk about this even if it needs to be dealt with. “I’m sorry, too,” Sean says, “for a lot of things.” 

Ryan’s hand finds Sean’s, his fingers brushing over Sean’s knuckles. “I want to come back,” Ryan says, “if you guys will still have me?” 

“Ryan, of fucking course we’ll have you.” Sean props himself up so that he’s leaning on his elbow and looking down at Ryan. His eyes are perfect and worried. Sean wants to kiss the worry from him, take it all away forever. “You’re going to look like an asshole on Twitter when you say you’re back in the band, but you’re a part of us.” 

Ryan laughs and Sean cups his jaw. Ryan ditching the band and then changing his mind might ruffle some feathers normally, but not in this case, with what they all just went through. Nothing sounds better than just being together as a collective. While Ryan was gone, Sean didn’t realize how much of himself was steadied by Ryan, how, without him, Sean feels lost, doesn’t feel like himself. 

“Remember you asked me what I wanted before?” Sean asks. Ryan nods. “Well, I knew it then, but I was afraid to say it out loud, to admit it to anyone, especially you. I know it now and I’m sure about it, more sure than anything else I’ve ever felt. I’m not afraid anymore. I know it might be too late, but I still need to tell you that it’s you I want. I always have.” 

Ryan laughs a little and then kisses him. “I fucking knew it.” 

“I’m sorry I fucked up,” Sean says. 

“We both did. We’re a fucking wreck.” 

“We could be good together, though,” Sean says. He lies back on his pillow and looks at Ryan, who meets his gaze. “If you still want me, that is.” 

“I’ve wanted you for a long time.” 

“Max and Tom know – or they’re as close to knowing without us telling them.” 

“And?” 

“I don’t think they give a shit.” 

Ryan laughs. “That sounds like them.” 

For a moment, Sean and Ryan lie there in silence, both on their backs and both staring up at Sean’s ceiling. Honestly, Sean wouldn’t mind if this was a part of his life from now until the end. He wants Ryan to be a permanent fixture around the apartment; he wants the spare room to be a spare room; he wants to eat cereal in the dip of the couch with Ryan right next to him, watching shitty TV shows and arguing over music. 

“Do you want to do this, then?” Sean asks, though he’s still looking at the ceiling. 

“Do what?” Ryan asks. Sean can hear the amused tilt to his voice. He knows he probably knows what Sean is asking, but he’s going to make him say it anyway. 

He rolls on his side, hands tucked under his face. He watches the soft rise and fall of Ryan’s chest. He looks for the bruises on Ryan's skin that have mostly faded, but Sean can still find the outlines, “Be in a relationship with me.” 

Ryan smiles and sits himself up on his elbows. “Sean, are you asking me to be your boyfriend? Because you’re kind of shitty at it.” 

“I never said I was good at this stuff.” 

“If we do this, Sean, I’m gonna need to know you’re going to be here. You’re not going to be afraid and try to pull away from me again?” 

Sean wraps his hand around Ryan’s wrist and tugs him down on to the bed. “Almost losing you once was enough for me.” Sean slides his hand over Ryan’s stubble-covered cheek and a smile blossoms under his palm. Sean loves Ryan’s smile. He loves all of him, really, but the smile is up there on the list. 

“Then we can do this,” Ryan says. 

They seal the deal with a kiss. 

Dating Ryan isn’t much different than living with Ryan or being in a band with Ryan, it’s just better because now Sean can look at him and touch him and kiss him whenever he wants to. They jump back into the studio once all the business with the psycho – or ‘The Collector,’ as the media has dubbed him – is put to bed. 

Max wants Sean to record the song he wrote about Ryan and he finally feels like it’s time to share it properly. They record it in the studio in one take. It’s the first time Ryan’s hearing the whole thing and Sean is almost afraid to look at him while he sings it. The feelings tied up in the words make his voice shake just a little. It’s not enough to really notice, but he thinks Ryan does, if the way he’s looking at him through the glass of the microphone booth has anything to do with it. 

Ross is watching them record. The snow has just started to fall in Chicago, light right now, but Ross is already shivering like they’re in the middle of a blizzard all the time. He’s getting ready to go back to California for the holidays and Tom is going with him until after Christmas. 

“Try not to self-destruct without me, guys,” Tom says after practice. “I’ll send you sunshine to keep you warm.” 

“You’re not leaving for three more days, Tom, shut the hell up,” Max grumps. 

“Don’t let him drown or anything,” Ryan tells Ross. 

After they record their songs for the day, the last songs they’ll record until after Tom gets back, Sean and Ryan go back to their apartment. They’ve kind of unofficially moved in together; nothing changes except Ryan’s clothes are tucked into Sean’s dresser and that type of shampoo he likes is in Sean’s bathroom. 

Things in his life fall back into place after being so unsettled for so long. He has Ryan, and even the ghosts return to him after their absence. Sean tries to handle them without involving Ryan, little shit he can do on his own to help them. Sometimes, though, Ryan asks about them, and sometimes, he’s lying against Sean when one of them shows up asking for help. He doesn’t get very upset anymore – maybe because the ghosts are what helped save him before, maybe because he knows that this will always be a part of Sean, something that comes along with him, and he wants Sean more than he dislikes the ghosts. 

“Are you happy?” Ryan asks in bed one night. His hands are at the back of Sean’s neck, tickling the hair there. 

Sean leans down to kiss him, firm, sure, pushing every inch of his love into the kiss so that Ryan can have it and keep it with him. “I’ve never been happier.” Even though they’ve known each other for years and they’ve seen each other in all stages of undress, they’re still learning the other’s body. Sean fucking loves it. He loves finding out Ryan’s favorite way to kiss, where he likes to be bit at on his neck, what he looks like when he’s coming. Sean’s memorized it all, but there are a million more things he wants to see and know and explore. 

Just like on the couch, they sag together into the center of the bed. Sean kisses Ryan again because it’s his new favorite thing to do. He’s got his hands on Ryan’s face, tracing his cheekbones, his stubble-covered jaw, the hallow of his eye where he once hosted a bruise. He rolls on top of Ryan; he wants to try something. He takes Ryan’s hands and moves them above his head. He holds his arms down again, like the first time they kissed on the couch. He’s watching Ryan’s face for a sign that he doesn’t like it, doesn’t want this, but his eyes darken and he bites his lip. Sean kisses him harder, squeezing at his wrists at the same time, and they both must like that – or so Sean is guessing by the way Ryan moans into his mouth. 

They haven’t fucked yet, but it’s okay. Sean likes kissing him, likes getting him off any way that he’s allowed to do it. Ryan opens his legs and Sean slips between them. He can feel Ryan hard against his thigh, so Sean sneaks one hand down between them to brush over Ryan’s bulge through his sleep pants. Ryan’s hips push up against Sean’s hand, trying for more friction. Sean tucks his face into Ryan’s neck. 

“Tell me what you want,” he says. 

There’s a flush on Ryan’s cheeks and Sean kisses him there before he kisses his mouth again. 

“Will you blow me?” Ryan asks. “I want you to – fuck, I want your mouth.” 

Sean goes back to Ryan’s neck and finds that little pulse point that Ryan likes, biting him there just a little, just enough to have him rocking his hips up against Sean. He kneels between Ryan’s legs and reaches out to pull his sleep pants down to his knees. Ryan lifts his hips to help him get them down and then there’s no barrier between Sean and Ryan’s cock. 

Ryan is already hard and leaking; he sneaks a hand down to touch himself because he can’t wait for Sean. That’s fine with Sean because he likes watching. He likes seeing Ryan with his hand curled around his dick and stroking himself slow, rubbing his thumb over the slick head. Sean bites his lip and Ryan’s hips twitch to meet his hand. 

“Don’t be greedy,” Sean says, knocking Ryan’s hands away. Ryan makes a shivery, disappointed sound, but it melts into a groan because Sean’s hand takes its place. He likes how responsive Ryan is; he acts like he’s never been touched before – and he hasn’t, at least not by Sean’s hands. He strokes him faster than Ryan had been touching himself and Ryan rewards him by panting loudly into the quiet of the room. 

“Everything about you is fucking beautiful,” Sean says. He adjusts so that he’s lying between Ryan’s legs. He kisses his thigh and bites the soft, pale skin there before wrapping his hand just under the head of Ryan’s cock and closing his mouth around the head. Ryan hisses. Sean lays an arm across his hips because Ryan is twitchy and Sean doesn’t want to choke. 

Ryan tastes good, even here. Sean moans and Ryan mimics him. His hand finds Sean’s head and threads calloused fingers into his hair. He doesn’t push or pull, just pets the strands of Sean’s hair through his fingertips and bites his lip, breathing heavily out of his nose, eyes heated and locked on Sean. Looking at Ryan while he blows him – fuck, it’s hot. Sean is hard, too, and his hips edge against the mattress. He’s not getting much friction, but this, right now, isn’t about him. He’s confident that Ryan will take care of him in the end. 

Sean takes him lower, watching Ryan all the while. “Sean,” Ryan says. “God, you don’t know how you look right now. You look so good like this.” If Sean thought he liked Ryan’s normal voice, it’s nothing compared to how much he likes his sex voice. At this point, Sean thinks maybe he could come just from how Ryan sounds when he’s having his cock sucked. 

Sean pulls off for a moment and Ryan moans his disappointment, his fingers tightening in Sean’s hair and pressing him back down. “Hang on,” Sean says. “I need to wet my hand.” He licks his palm sloppy and fast, spits into it when his tongue isn’t working. He’s dizzy because his hand tastes like Ryan, too, the same salty tang. 

He touches Ryan’s cock again and the slide is easier now, slicker with the spit. Ryan drops his head back against the pillow. Sean wishes he had asked Ryan to take off his shirt because he wants to see the way the flush is creeping across his chest and up his neck. “Isn’t that better?” Sean asks. 

“Fuck,” Ryan hisses. 

Sean lowers his mouth back on to Ryan’s dick, sinking lower than before. “Fuck, Sean, shit.” 

God, Sean wants to touch himself so fucking badly when Ryan sounds like this. It makes it better that he’s the one who’s doing this to him, ramping him up, making his toes curl with just his mouth. He’s not sure how long it’s been since Ryan got off before he and Sean started fucking, but it’s been a long fucking time for Sean and he’s hard as fuck in his pants. He gets one hand down to his own pants, just cradling his cock for a moment, but he loses himself for a second, drops even lower on Ryan’s cock, his head brushing the back of Sean’s throat. He doesn’t gag, but Ryan practically shouts and his fingers tighten almost painful in Sean’s hair. 

He tries to keep the pace steady after that, sucking hard and wet and fast. He wants to see Ryan get there. Ryan is rocking up against the arm Sean has over his hips, searching for more, and Sean digs his fingers into Ryan’s hipbone lightly. Ryan’s getting all gasp-y and his cock is twitching in Sean’s mouth. Sean thinks he’s close, so he pulls back up to suck on the head. He presses the point of his tongue to the same spot just under the head of his dick that Ryan touched himself at earlier and that’s it. Ryan moans and Sean holds him down as he comes in Sean’s mouth. 

He doesn’t pull off right away, even though the heat in his body is unbearable and all he wants to do is fucking come right now. He swallows Ryan’s come and then mouths at his cock. Ryan is shivering, breathing harsh, and Sean doesn’t pull off until he feels Ryan start to soften when the pressure of his mouth must be too much to take. 

“Come here, please,” Ryan says. Sean crawls to him, Ryan’s hand curling around his shoulder, tugging him down so that they can kiss. Ryan moans into the kiss and there’s yet another thing Sean learns about Ryan: he likes tasting himself mixed with Sean. “Let me get you off,” he says when they break their kiss, his mouth flicking over his shiny lips. 

Sean nods and Ryan tugs his pants down. Sean is seriously on fucking edge. “Just jerk me off. I want to come, fuck,” Sean says. Ryan leans up to kiss him again as his hand curls around Sean’s cock. 

Ryan’s hand is rougher than Sean’s own, but he likes it, the calluses on his fingertips, the scars from the beatings his hands suffer…he can feel them and it’s just another reminder that these are Ryan’s hands, this is Ryan touching him. Even though all Sean asked for was Ryan’s hands, he still gets Ryan’s tongue licking around his hand, wetting Sean’s dick as he strokes it. 

Sean can’t breathe, can barely watch Ryan like this. There are hot splinters of pleasure buzzing at his spine and his mind is empty except for the repetition of _Ryan, Ryan, Ryan_. It’s so good – anything from Ryan is good, but Sean can’t stop himself from chasing Ryan’s movements, fucking into his hand. 

He hears Ryan laugh and then feels the soft bite of teeth digging into his hip. Sean’s hips jerk. “Shit, Ryan.” Ryan smiles up at him and strokes Sean faster, his grip tight but not in a painful way, in a way that makes Sean’s knees go weak. “I need to – ” 

“Come on, then,” Ryan says, never ceasing his movement. “Come for me, Sean.” 

All it takes is a few more strokes and then he’s coming on Ryan’s hand, his cheek, his neck. Ryan pays back the earlier favor and doesn’t let go right away. He squeezes Sean’s cock and strokes him once, twice, milking his dick for all he has. When he’s got come pearling at the tip of Sean’s dick, he licks it away. 

“You’re going to fucking kill me doing shit like that,” Sean says. He sags down boneless in the bed, his head all fuzzy from coming. He can feel Ryan moving, but he’s lost to the moment and to whatever Ryan is doing. When he cracks his eyes open, Ryan is leaning over him, fucking smiling at him. It should be illegal for him to smile like that with Sean’s come on his face. 

Sean has the persistent urge to pull Ryan into his lap and clean the come off of him, but Ryan is already taking off his shirt and wiping his hands and face off before tossing it aside. They’re both sweaty and sticky, but Sean still lets Ryan curl up next to him in bed. He doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want Ryan to go anywhere. 

“I love you,” Ryan says, kissing Sean’s collarbone, his eyes closed and lashes long against his cheeks. 

“I love you, too,” Sean says, kissing Ryan on his forehead. He’s never meant anything more in his entire life.

***

The next day, Tom asks Sean and Ryan to drive him and his Ryan to the airport. Tom’s an asshole because it snowed a lot overnight and now they’ve got to go out in near-knee-deep snow while Tom’s on his way to clear sunny skies and constant beach weather. 

“I’ll bring back souvenirs!” Tom promises as he slams the trunk of Ryan’s car closed. 

“Good ones,” Sean says. The fat, wet flakes of snow stick to his face and hair with the chilly wind that’s coming at them. “No bobble heads or key chains.”

“Or snow globes,” Ryan adds from the passenger seat once Tom and Sean crawl inside the car. Sean is driving and Tom and Ross are tucked in the backseat. 

“Only the best for you boys,” Ross says, his voice muffled from the thick scarf that’s wrapped around his face. He’s dressed like he’s preparing to explore the Arctic or something.

Tom slides an arm around Ross’ shoulders and draws him closer. “I’m getting you out of here just in time. I’m pretty sure you’d die here otherwise.” 

“Man was not meant to live in this weather,” Ross says. 

The drive to the airport isn't too long, made a little longer with the bad weather and holiday traffic. Sean’s still kind of surprised that Tom is leaving. He’s rarely out of the city for the holidays and he and Ross haven’t been dating all that long. He peeks at them in the rearview mirror – Ross has settled his head against Tom’s shoulder and Tom’s got this dopey smile on his face. It’s all too much; Sean has to fight down the laugh that wants to escape him. Tom’s got it bad, clearly, and Ross is no better. When Sean turns to glance at his Ryan, though, he thinks maybe he gets it then. 

“You two are idiots for wanting to fly during the busiest season of the year,” Ryan says once they arrive at the airport. It’s packed. Of course it is. It always is around the holidays. 

Tom ignores him and he and Sean unload the luggage from the trunk while Ross goes to check in at the front desk. 

“I guess things between you two are pretty good?” Sean asks. 

Tom looks at him through the wet tangle of his hair and nods. “Yeah, it’s a lot better these days.” 

“You’re not worried about you-know-who?”

“Listen,” Tom says. “I love Jon. I do. He’s family at this point, but I’m not giving Ryan up without a fight.” 

“How romantic,” Sean says. 

Tom flips him off and nods towards their Ryan, who’s coming back to help with the luggage. “Don't tell me you don’t know what I mean.” 

Sean smiles. “No, I do.”

Tom laughs. “Good. I was starting to think you’d never sort your shit out.” 

Sean shoves lightly at Tom, who playfully punches him back. Even though it’s only for a short time, Sean will still miss him. The three of them meet up with Ross inside the airport and then find the right gate after getting everything settled. Their flight time is pretty close, moved up because the weather has temporarily cleared up, so they don’t have to hang around too long. 

“I’ll Skype with you on your birthday,” Tom tells Sean as he tugs him in for a hug. 

“So you can rub in how much warmer you are? How kind of you.” 

Tom laughs and pushes Sean away so that he can pull Ryan in. Ross comes over to Sean and, though Sean didn’t know him well when he first arrived and still doesn’t know him as much as he could, he knows that Ross is a good guy and he’s good for Tom – that’s what’s important. Sean is pretty sad to see him go. Ross tries to give him a handshake, but Sean gives him a hug instead. 

Right before Tom boards the plane, he stops to give Sean and Ryan a salute. They all need a bit of time to recharge their batteries. Sean is genuinely happy that Tom is happy. 

The snow has calmed down to a light smattering as Ryan and Sean walk back to his car. They both climb inside the car. Ryan reaches over to brush off the flakes sticking to Sean’s coat. Sean smiles at him and starts the car. He’s about to back out when Ryan's hand finds his wrist. 

“Sean, wait,” Ryan says. 

“Okay. Is something wrong? We didn't forget anything, did we?” 

“No, I just – let’s just sit here a minute.” 

Sean nods and puts his hands on the wheel. They’re parked in a way so that they can see the planes in the back of the airport. One of the planes belongs to Tom and Ross. “Okay, is everything alright?” 

Ryan takes a deep breath, but he nods. “Yeah, I kind of want to tell you something.”

“Oh, well, whatever it is, you can tell me. You know that.” 

Ryan nods. “I know. That’s why I know that I want to tell you this first.” Ryan's voice is weird, tight, and honestly, it scares Sean. He’s buried himself pretty deep into the happy mood of his life as of late and he’s not ready to move away from that just yet. 

“What is it?” Sean asks when Ryan hasn’t spoken up. 

“I wanted to tell you about the night I was kidnapped.” 

Oh. “Oh,” Sean says. “Okay. I want you to know, though, if you’re not ready, you don’t have to. I can wait for you.” He wasn’t expecting this. He’s wanted to know, but now that the time is here, he’s not sure he wants it all drudged up again. 

In the end, he knows it needs to be said. Sean needs to accept that this is a part of Ryan now, just like Ryan accepted the part of Sean that he doesn’t exactly care for. Ryan is looking straight ahead, out the snow-flecked windshield. Without the wipers on, the snow is covering it, slowly blotting out the planes in front of them in a sea of white. 

“I was looking for Nick,” Ryan says. “I remembered pieces of the cases I’d heard on the news. I remembered what you and I had talked about and I went looking around for hints as to where he might have gotten Nick.”

Ryan quiets for a moment, like maybe he expects Sean to berate him for doing something so stupid. Sean won’t say shit, though. God knows his decisions haven’t been sparkling examples of good ideas. When Ryan is sure Sean isn’t going to start bitching at him, he takes a deep breath and keeps going. 

“I went to that park, the place where the girl died, and I thought he wouldn’t come back there, honestly, because she had died there and wouldn’t the cops think to look there for if he came back? I guess I was wrong on both counts, though. There were no cops, only me and him.”

Sean’s hands tighten around the steering wheel. Even though the man was caught, it doesn’t stop pissing him off that he was able to do this at all. 

“He told me that he didn’t want to hurt me,” Ryan says, his voice a rough whisper. When Sean looks at him, his eyes are far away, staring straight ahead. “And before I could run, he was already grabbing me. I fought him off – that’s how I got the bruises,” Ryan says, motioning to his face and arms. “He hit me with something. I don't know. I passed out after that and, when I woke up, I was already in the backseat of his car, all tied up.” 

Sean wants to stop this, in a way. He doesn’t want to make Ryan repeat what happened to him, doesn’t want him to go back and relive the moments again. He doesn’t even want to picture that same Ryan he found that night in the Collector’s house. 

“Ryan,” he says. 

Ryan looks at him. “I'm okay, Sean. I think I need to talk about it now. I’ve been thinking about it ever since it happened and I just…I can’t carry it on my own anymore.” 

Sean knows that feeling. He knows it well. He reaches across the space of the car and takes Ryan’s hand in his own, rubbing his thumb against the back of Ryan’s hand. Ryan looks at their hands and then at Sean. He smiles – it reaches all the way to his eyes and Sean worries a little less after that. 

“After that, it felt like we drove forever. I was so scared. I thought I was going to die and I thought about how I’d left everything between you and I and the band. I just wanted another chance to make things right again. It was all I could think about. And then he stops driving and blindfolds me and takes me in his house, leads me downstairs, and puts me in that goddamn _room_. And then he’s gone, but not before welcoming me to his ‘family.’ Then the first voice I hear is Nick’s.” 

Sean doesn’t know shit about psychology, but he thinks it’s good that Ryan is talking about it, that he can open up to Sean about it, even though sitting in a car in an airport parking lot wasn’t exactly how Sean pictured it. 

“I was lucky, I guess, lucky that I hadn’t been there as long as some of the others. That room was too small for all of us, too hot, and no one could leave or bathe and he only brought food once a day. At least I had found Nick…that was good. In a weird way, that guy got what he wanted. The people in that room had to create a sort of community – they were a family, brought together by their mutual hatred of that fucking psycho.” 

“The important thing is that you're safe now, they all are, and that guy is locked away.” 

Ryan nods. “It helps to know that he’s not skulking around.” 

Sean raises Ryan’s hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to the back of his hand. Ryan looks at him and smiles. It isn’t as strong as before he told Sean about his experience, but Sean thinks he'll be okay. They’ll be better for it in the long run. 

He starts the car and takes Ryan out for lunch at his favorite place. After they eat, they go back to their apartment, get out of their snow-damp clothes, and crawl back into bed. 

“I like this apartment way more now that I’m a part of the warm bedroom,” Ryan says. He presses his still-cold nose against Sean’s neck. 

Sean wraps the blankets tighter around the two of them and slides his cold foot in against Ryan’s leg. Ryan jerks a little and bites at Sean’s shoulder while Sean laughs. 

They’ve come so far and been through so much. Sean has almost lost Ryan more than once. He can’t believe he’s even here now, where he’s at least settled and content, and most importantly, with Ryan. When he thinks about it, he knows he'd still take everything that had happened, the good and the bad, because it meant he still got there in the end. He still has Ryan and he’s still making music. That's all he’s ever really wanted.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[mix] these exit wounds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/446121) by [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery)




End file.
